I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 19, 2026] Knotfall

Knotfall is another band from Philly. I’m guessing that the band is the project of singer/guitarist (and for one song, drummer) Sami Rahman.  Because there have been different people on the different releases.

They totally threw me for a loop when I listened to them because I thought that they were basically a shoegaze band (since Mint Field is).  August in the Water starts their album and this set.  It has quiet guitars and soft vocals.  It’s quite lovely and I could see how they fit with Mint Field.  The song built to a louder sound, but still rather shoegazey (actually I found that his voice sounded a bit like Grandson and sometimes like Pavement).   But as the song reached the end, he started screaming in an intense, voice cracking sort of way.  And then the song dropped down to quieter moments again.  It was surprising on record but it was even better live.

Beyond Memory had an early Cure feel with lots of fuzz and I loved when the song broke and the two guitars played a really cool and clear riff–that blasted through the fuzz.  But the bigger surprise came at the end of the song when it shifted gears into a really heavy sound and really dark almost doom metal riff.  It was great and really intense–I would have happily let that riff continue for several more minutes, but it stopped after just a few runs through.

Sami told us that five of the six songs they were playing were from their recently released debut album.  Surprisingly they didn’t have any for sale and their shirts (which were really cool) were only Small-Large.

Despite its name, Halloween was a very sweet/sad song and it was followed by the only song not on the album (Look for You appears to be their first single)

For the second to last song, Thorns, Sami got behind the drum kit (I did rather enjoy his drumming) and the drummer took over rhythm guitar.  This song had some samples and was much faster from start to finish.  This one had some cool breaks where the song got kind of electronic.  I thought this was great as it put some more diversity in their sound.

They ended with the title song–more quiet guitars and vocals until they just exploded into a huge screaming chorus.

I really enjoyed them and hope they get bigger.  I also wish he’d introduced the band members.  Also, a really fun thing about PhilaMOCA is when they project movies behind the band.  I’m not sure which Chinese movie they were playing, but it’s fun to have a totally unrelated visual behind a band.  No idea what the movie was (and Google image search is no help at all!)

August in the Water ≅
Beyond Memory ≅
Halloween ≅
Look For You √
Thorns ≅
Shoreline ≅

≅ Shoreline (2026)
√ single 2024