HOAXED – Death Knocks

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5.0

• Bands:
  HOAXED
• Duration: 00:31:12
• Available from: 02/13/2026
• Label:

• Relapse Records

Streaming not yet available

Hoaxed are a trio from Portland who, after debuting in 2022 with a first full-length, entitled “Two Shadows”, today return to the scene with “Death Knocks”, with a partially renewed lineup, thanks to the entry of a new bassist, and a style which, at least in the intentions of the girls, should wink at those lineups capable of combining melody and immediacy, with darker and more malignant atmospheres, such as Unto Others, the latest Tribulation or Tobias Forge's own Ghosts.

Those who listen to metal in its thousand forms inevitably end up drawing their own line that separates what is metal from what is not: it is not always a question of style, but rather a strange mix of sounds, attitude, themes, atmospheres and roots.
The result means that it seems absolutely normal to us to deal with borderline genres on our pages such as, for example, dungeon synth or certain folk, and then perhaps brand bands complete with distorted guitars and dark imagery as 'non-metal'.

Hoaxed seem to us to be a perfect example of the second category: they present themselves with a threatening title like “Death Knocks”, a gloomy cover complete with ruins and cemeteries, yet every connection with the metal spirit is exhausted in accessory aspects.
As much as they try, ours lack the 'right' spirit: They play pop/rock that is already largely outdated, every now and then they throw a bit of keyboards into the mix to give a ghostly touch, but everything always remains on the surface, soulless. Even the voice of singer/guitarist Kat Keo appears completely out of context, with a style that has many more points in common with a certain female power pop than with metal music in the strict sense.
Let's be clear, we don't belong to that category of listeners for whom if something isn't metal, then it isn't even of value, but if you choose to play with certain rules, there are some essential fixed points – an attitude, in fact, that is completely missing here.

So who is “Death Knocks” aimed at? Certainly not for those who love the decadent charm of darkness, nor for those looking for the impact and power of great riffs and fast-paced rhythms.
If the writing were at least minimally interesting, we could imagine a target made up of very young people, who perhaps are just discovering sounds different from the prevailing ones, but the quality is so low that we would feel like we were doing an injustice to many smart teenagers, perfectly capable of grasping a language that speaks to their generation: “Death Knocks”, on the other hand, is an already old work, totally out of focus and on which there is no need to dwell further.