Critic's Pick: Knocked Loose & Denzel Curry

Heavier sounds seem to be what’s interesting to rap champion Denzel Curry lately. In March, the collective called The Scythe that he’s part of with A$AP Ferg, Bktherula and others dropped their dark and pummeling Strictly 4 the Scythe mixtape like a truckload of molten asphalt. A month prior to that, Kentucky hardcore punks Knocked Loose released “Hive Mind,” a brutal scorched-earth blast of a single with a feature from Curry. It’s got so much angsty energy that it’s powering a whole dual-headliner Hive Mind Tour. While hip-hop built around old-school soul and jazz samples might be more my bag personally, I can’t deny the raw power of bars with about the same mass as a white dwarf star blended with warp-speed beats, singer Bryan Garris’ screams (which remind me sometimes of Bill Paxton in Aliens) and a guitar sound augmented recently by an undifferentiated mass of menace the band calls “the hell tone.” Connecticut metalcore band Boundaries and thunderous Pennsylvania post-grunge group Superheaven open.

7 p.m. at The Pinnacle

910 Exchange Lane