Chicago’s pop-punk heros KNUCKLE PUCK have announced the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2015 breakthrough debut album “Copacetic“. New record “Shapeshifter” will be released on 13th October 2017 via Rise Records. The band are also streaming a new single “Gone” from the album.
In early 2017, Knuckle Puck entered the studio to record the follow-up to Copacetic—their 2015 breakthrough that debuted in the Top 10 of five different Billboard charts, earned a nomination for Album of the Year at the 2016 Alternative Press Music Awards and launched them from the Chicago suburbs to a place among the most beloved acts of the modern pop-punk genre. But midway through the process, the band (vocalist Joe Taylor, guitarists Nick Casasanto and Kevin Maida, bassist Ryan Rumchaks and drummer John Siorek) realized they were on the wrong path. They weren’t only making the wrong album for Knuckle Puck, they were making the wrong album for themselves. They knew they had no choice but to start from scratch.
“Having such a struggle and being so disconnected in the recording process felt wrong” Casasanto explains. “It felt so wrong, and we were all afraid to talk about it. There was some denial when we realized what was unfolding“.
Discouraged but undefeated, the band changed producers, eventually landing back with ‘Copacetic’ producer Seth Henderson, and began rebuilding the songs they’d written from the ground up. Knuckle Puck’s first attempt would have produced a fine album, buttheir second created the right one. The result is ‘Shapeshifter‘, due October 13 on Rise Records. Despite its title, the album isn’t a reinvention for the band; rather, it’s the sound of Knuckle Puck taking their best qualities and honing them to make them even sharper. The songwriting became tighter and more deliberate, the lyrics more introspective and urgent, without losing an ounce of the sweat-soaked authenticity and passion that made “Copacetic” so captivating. Above all, it’s an album that proves the band are unflinchingly unwilling to compromise when it comes to their art. That’s a sentiment reinforced throughout Shapeshifter’s main lyrical theme – the importance of identity – which was only magnified during their first studio session.
Lyrics:
i did what i do best
forgot myself
got overdressed like everybody else
a glance and a half smile
black heels on the white tile
it took seven years for your path to realign
but i’ll still think of you
on the fifth of june
cause when i saw you i lost you all over againgone
doesn’t it feel good to be invisible
just like the way i used to be
have i been fading away?
yeah i’m so goneand i can feel your stare like dynamite
breaking silence with irish goodbyes
but i’m not who you remember
just who do you remember?
since you stole it all away
you stole it all awayyou need a change of pace without my ghost
but you’re better off when i go
a painful anecdote sure to stunt your growth
you’re better off when I’m goneshapeshifter
theres no way back
shapeshifter you’re never gonna get the girl
theres no way back
shapeshifter you’re never gonna change the world
theres no way back
