Just when you thought you had your Halloween 2021 watch list finalized, Knocked Loose have arrived today with the surprise-released follow-up to 2019’s A Different Shade of Blue—an EP that’s cinematic enough in its own right, tapping horror aesthetics in the same way a group like Portrayal of Guilt does to douse their manic hardcore with a bone-chilling sense of unease. Yet A Tear in the Fabric of Life also arrives with a short film that spans the record’s 21 minutes, with director Magnus Jonsson giving life—or, uh, death—to KL frontman Bryan Garris’ story detailed in the EP, a continuation of themes touched on in Shade of Blue.
“It’s a story about extreme grief and the levels a person is willing to go through to get rid of it,” Garris shared in a press release. “This is the first time we really dove in and tried to create something sonically that evokes a different range of emotions and over all something that introduces tension and anxiety with a massive pay off. The story is told not only through words but through the music as well, which proved to be our biggest challenge in writing.”
With the film opening with an eerie phantom ride familiar to Lost Highway, the music kicks in in a big way with the car making a head-on collision with a tree. “I always want to create something that complements the music, works within its structures and hopefully enriches the experience for the audience,” Jonsson added. “I wanted to create an intense nightmare, focusing on the emotional states of Bryan’s main character. I created visuals that bring the audience deeper into this story of a spiraling descent into horror and destructive madness—taking a minimalistic and sometimes even abstract approach to many parts of the image making, creating unease and an eerie atmosphere.”
You can watch the film in full below.
