Knot

In the simplest terms, Knot is effectively Krill’s final lineup with an additional musician added in, but it’s the particulars that highlight the differences between the two bands. In essence, Knot is a bigger, more ruminative version of Krill, but it’s also something that’s distinct unto itself. And on the band’s debut album, which is called Knot, too, it’s easy to see that Knot has a perspective all its own. Where Krill dealt in giddy bursts of energy that explored the ugliest neuroses of twenty-somethings, Knot is more restrained and deliberate. All those guitars build off one another, with each member playing their own distinct part—ones that often feel alien from the next—until they all coalesce into these big washes of melodic dissonance. Taken in full, Knot is both a logical continuation and a fresh start. Knot isn’t a band in the traditional sense, and that full embrace of making art on the members’ own terms is what makes the album so evocative. Knot exists because the players found creative fulfillment in it, and maybe, for once, that’s enough.