Year of the Knife returns to New Haven, with a new record and a hard year behind them

The Delaware hardcore band plays an all-ages Sunday matinee-style bill at Space Ballroom on Jan. 3, its first New Haven-area show since 2019.

The last time Year of the Knife played New Haven, it was January 2019, the room was The State House, and the band's 2020 album *Internal Incarceration* hadn't come out yet. Nearly eight years later they're coming back, with a new record that arrived this week and a summer none of them will forget.

Year of the Knife headlines Space Ballroom in Hamden on Sunday, Jan. 3. Doors are at 5 p.m., the music starts at 6, and it's all ages. The venue lists a deep bill behind them: Scattered Remnants, Drown In Blood, Groaning Retch, Justice Blade and The Otherside. Tickets are on sale through OpenDate, and Space Ballroom holds about 300.

The new record is *No Love Lost*, out Tuesday, Oct. 27, on Pure Noise Records. It's the Delaware band's follow-up to *Internal Incarceration*: nine tracks in about 20 minutes, recorded by Kurt Ballou, and pulling hardcore and death metal together. Two singles set the tone. "Wish," all of 86 seconds, features Devin Swank of Sanguisugabogg, and the 48-second "Last Laugh" features Dylan Walker of Full of Hell, per Metal Injection.

It almost didn't get the rollout it deserved. In late June, the band was in a car accident while on tour, and all four members were seriously injured, vocalist Madison Watkins most of all, Metal Insider reported when the album was announced. The band says profits from album sales go directly toward the members' ongoing recovery.

Buying the record and a ticket is about as direct as fan support gets.

That context makes a January date feel bigger than a routine winter booking. A band coming off a year like that, with a short, brutal new record to play, is going to bring something to a room this size.

Space Ballroom is the right place for it. The Treadwell Street venue doubles as a craft beer bar, and its calendar regularly makes room for heavy music alongside indie touring acts: Comeback Kid brought its *Wake the Dead* 20th anniversary show there, and Militarie Gun has played the room too. A six-band, all-ages bill on a Sunday evening is the kind of show that pulls in the whole Connecticut hardcore scene, from teenagers at their first gig to people who were at The State House in 2019.

Tickets are on OpenDate now. Give *No Love Lost* a few spins before then, get there at doors to catch the openers, and if you can, buy the record. The band has said where that money goes.

Sources: Space Ballroom — home / calendar (spaceballroom.com); Space Ballroom — Comeback Kid "Wake The Dead" 20 Year Anniversary Show (spaceballroom.com); Space Ballroom — Militarie Gun (spaceballroom.com); OpenDate — Year of the Knife, January 3, 2027 (app.opendate.io); Pure Noise Records — Year of The Knife Announce New Album "No Love Lost" (purenoise.net); Metal Insider — Year of the Knife share two new songs, provide accident update, reveal new album details (metalinsider.net); Metal Injection — Year of the Knife streams two new songs feat. Full of Hell, Sanguisugabogg frontmen (metalinjection.net)