Anti-EDM Stars ISOCKNOCK Drop Surprise Debut Album ‘4EVR’
ISOKNOCK – the boundary-pushing duo composed of ISOxo and Knock2 – have just released their surprise debut album, 4EVR, an unexpected drop that exemplifies the pair’s fervent drive to redefine the next decade of dance music.
4EVR is an eight-track masterclass on radical, runaway imagination. The album sees ISOKNOCK flip electronic convention on its head, filtering thrashing trap beats, experimental production, and vintage dance-pop through a punk rock lens – a genre-defying approach that leads to a bracingly-original body of work.
4EVR is an album for the current moment, using potent maximalism to speak to the disaffected youth. ISOKNOCK are asking their audience to embrace life’s pains and wear their hearts on their sleeves – a vivid sense of empowerment transmuted by the duo’s grungy, moshpit-inducing production. In a scene often muddled by aimless positivity, ISOKNOCK are disrupting the status quo of mainstream dance music through rare subversive expression.
Alongside the release of 4EVR, ISOKNOCK have unveiled a special short film and music video for the album’s title track, both co-directed by Mitchell Mullins and Zach Okami. Exploring a mysterious relationship between a biker and a young woman falling in love at an underground party, the short film premiered at a gallery exhibit and album release event at Los Angeles’ LOT 613 on Wednesday, July 31.
ISOKNOCK’s genre deconstruction continues on the title track “4EVR,” which features sigilcore vocalist cade clair. Kicking off with futuristic synth melodies before introducing cathartic dance-pop bass stabs and infectious emo vocal crooning from cade clair, “4EVR” builds with Jersey Club drum rhythms and panoramic trance synth chord progressions. The track then drops into a thumping, Eurodance-inspired instrumental before transitioning into a rage-inspired trap beat and closing out with an epic, cinematic synth lead – concluding a song that twists a host of modern and vintage aesthetic tropes into a decidedly fresh, modern perspective.
The tracklist for 4EVR begins with “THRASH (PARTY STARTER),” an appropriately-titled song that kicks off with harrowing sirens and heart-dropping, euphoric synth melodies. The track then builds into its explosive trap drop, a section filled to the brim with visceral distortion, trunk-rattling kick drums, and snappy, reverberating snare hits. Continuing the album’s characteristic genre traversal, “TRASH (PARTY STARTER)” finishes with a cacophony of palpitating rave hardcore elements, wrapping the track with a warehouse party atmosphere.
The album continues with “ENERGY,” a collaboration with Zimbabwe-bred vocalist Bantu that filters bass house formulas and Afrobeat-inspired drum rhythms through ISOKNOCK’s signature maximalist approach.
4EVR is then rounded out by the propulsive, percussion-oriented “PAIN”; the futuristic, climatic trap banger “SIGNAL,” featuring vocalist Dava; and the emotional, R&B-inspired “BLIND,” featuring vocalists Araya and Sur Black.
Audacious, grandiose, and stacked with vivid production details, 4EVR positions ISOKNOCK as pop stars ready to be the face of electronic music’s future. More than that, the album acutely translates the duo’s close creative synergy – a chemistry made possible by their long-standing friendship and mutual artistic instincts. 4EVR takes listeners across a gauntlet of music genres throughout its tracklist, but it never loses sight of ISOKNOCK’s finely-tuned creative and thematic vision – a precise execution that proliferates a timeless aura around the entire project, ensuring it to inspire electronic music fans for years to come.
