Hardcore Punk

For a long period of time, punk rock and heavy metal were at each other's throats. The simple, DIY aesthetic of punk clashed with metal's grandiose sensibilities and polished sound, yet both genres filled the niche of aggressive, loud, and fast music being played for the disenchanted youth. Thus, the genres often shared an overlap in influence, despite the divide between fanbases. Early punk rock bands such as Ramones, Sex Pistols, Misfits, The Damned, and The Clash helped create a style of music that could both be understood, written, and played by those with minimal knowledge of music theory. The very short and fast songs very rarely meandered from a simple three or four power chords, focusing far more on raw emotion and delivery than musical intricacy.

Disclaimer: This entry will contain a lot of subgenres.

Hardcore punk, often just referred to as hardcore, is a term given to punk rock that excels in its extremity. Where the punk bands played fast, the hardcore bands played faster. Where the punk bands were heavy, the hardcore bands were heavier. Every aspect of the punk framework was emphasized, anywhere from anti-establishment lyrical themes, speed and aggression, and the DIY aspect. Bands like The Germs, The Middle Class, Black Flag, and Bad Brains started this wave off with a bang, releasing a great deal of keystone albums right off the bat. Soon after this initial handful of bands, the first wave of hardcore took off. Other bands throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s such as Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, horror punk legends Misfits, Adolescents, Dead Kennedys, and countless others would bring hardcore to the center of underground music. Post-hardcore (which will be discussed in much more detail in a later entry) began to take shape towards the end of the 1980s, with bands like NoMeansNo, Hüsker Dü, and Fugazi taking the reigns. Hardcore was full of life, energy, and ideas.

Recommended 1st wave hardcore listening:
1. Germs - (GI) (1979)
2. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980)
3. Black Flag - Damaged (1981)
4. Bad Brains - Bad Brains (1982)
5. Misfits - Walk Among Us (1982)

One of the first noticeable differentiations within the hardcore scene appeared on the cusp of the 1980s. As hardcore had only caught on in the last two years or so of the 1970s, it was still very much a fledgling genre. Crust punk, however, took its formula to another level. Crust punk (sometimes known as crustcore or stenchcore) embodies everything that the grimy underground scene of punk music was at the time. It formed around the anarcho-punk movement of the 1970s, combining visceral imagery and a raw, sludgy tone to that of the preexisting hardcore sound. As a result, bands like Discharge, Amebix, and G.I.S.M. (also part of the Japanese hardcore scene) forefronted a new subgenre. Crust punk still goes strong even into the new millennium, with bands like His Hero is Gone, Tragedy, and Fall of Efrafa continuing to innovate within the style. One key aspect of crust was how suspiciously metal-influenced it sounded, with some bands like Discharge playing a style of crust punk known as D-beat, influenced heavily by early speed metal bands like Motörhead. And this is certainly not where the crossover stopped.

Recommended crust punk listening:
1. Discharge - Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing (1982)
2. G.I.S.M. - Detestation (1983)
3. Amebix - Arise! (1985)
4. His Hero is Gone - Monuments to Thieves (1997)
5. Tragedy - Vengeance (2002)

As the '80s progressed, so did both metal and hardcore. Hardcore had amassed a gigantic underground following and had broken off into a few distinct subgenres. Metal had exploded both underground and in the mainstream with thrash metal and glam metal, respectively. The turning point by which both genres decided to put aside their differences and fuse was with a little thing called thrashcore. Thrashcore is not a very widespread style of music, and was only played by a few key bands such as D.R.I., Septic Death, and Charles Bronson. However, its influence will reign true as metal and hardcore continue to fuse further down the road. At the same time as this genre coming to fruition, a special wave of music originating in New York comes to be; aptly referred to as New York hardcore, known colloquially as NYHC. This scene, though not being incredibly sonically different from the initial hardcore wave, was integral to the development of the genre as a whole: countless new and exciting bands got their start from being active in this scene, such as Agnostic Front, Madball, Sick of It All, Judge, Gorilla Biscuits (also a key figure in another upcoming subgenre), and Cro-Mags. An additional aside: crossover thrash (a style which will be discussed further) developed directly alongside the NYHC movement, with bands such as Ludichrist, Leeway, and Crumbsuckers.

Recommended NYHC and thrashcore listening:
1. D.R.I. - Dealing With It! (1985)
2. Cro-Mags - The Age of Quarrel (1986)
3. Judge - Bringin' It Down (1989)
4. Sick of It All - Scratch the Surface (1994)
5. Madball - Demonstrating My Style (1996)

Melodic hardcore developed in the mid-1980s, and placed emphasis on much more melodic vocal styles and musicianship than before, allowing for more subtlety and introspection in the already-allotted hardcore blueprint. Melodic hardcore bands would introduce more artistic elements to their sound, similarly to the aforementioned post-hardcore, and were always open to musical experimentation and progression. As a result, melodic hardcore has gone through many different phases since its inception. Initially, it had close ties to the NYHC movement (Gorilla Biscuits), but then became more of a skate punk thing in the 1990s (Pennywise), before seeing a revival in conjunction with modern metalcore (Stick to Your Guns, Counterparts). Melodic hardcore's founding bands included Dag Nasty (very influential on emocore), Descendents (very influential on pop punk), and Bad Religion, all of whom have released incredibly important and influential albums to the scene.

Recommended melodic hardcore listening:
1. Dag Nasty - Can I Say (1986)
2. Bad Religion - No Control (1989)
3. Gorilla Biscuits - Start Today (1989)
4. Leatherface - Mush (1991)
5. Modern Life is War - Witness (2005)

Around the same time as melodic hardcore developed, creating a more accessible and less aggressive offshoot of the sound, noisecore came along and did the exact opposite. Noisecore is, to put it bluntly, one of the most abrasive and chaotic forms of music to ever exist. Setting the precedent for grindcore, noisecore songs are mostly short, compressed bursts of noise, accompanied with harsh vocals and blast beats. The metal influence at this point is uncanny, with styles such as death metal and black metal developing around the same time. Lyrical content is either tongue-in-cheek gross-out humor, or scathing political commentary, but it will regardlessly be delivered in a way that is near-indecipherable. The genre (for obvious reasons) has never entered the mainstream, not even in the overall hardcore scene, and thus noteworthy releases are made with large gaps between years, but the avant-garde genre still thrives (particularly in the Japanese scene) and continues to pull itself through the years.

Recommended noisecore listening:
1. Confuse - Indignation (1984)
2. The Gerogerigegege - Instruments Disorder (1994)
3. Melt-Banana - "Charlie" (1998)
4. Today is the Day - Sadness Will Prevail (2002)
5. The Locust - Plague Landscapes (2003)

Some of the most notable fusions of metal and hardcore developed from 1983-1990. The three most discussed examples are crossover thrash, grindcore, and metalcore. All of these styles have been mentioned somewhere prior in this entry, and each will be given more analysis in future entries, so I will keep this brief and save my recommendations for when those come out. But for now, I will give IMDb-style summaries of each:

1. Crossover thrash combines hardcore and thrash metal, and is characterized by heavy thrash riffs, vocal styles, thematic elements, and even guitar solos. (S.O.D., Suicidal Tendencies, etc.)
2. Grindcore is a style of music that developed from the UK's crust punk scene, resulting in an incredibly fast, dirty-sounding and powerful genre that revolutionized the "microsong" concept seen so often in extreme music. (Napalm Death, Repulsion, etc.)
3. Metalcore is another fusion genre, characterized by more usage of breakdowns (when the song slows its tempo and induces chronic headbanging) and dissonance in its musicianship. (Integrity, Earth Crisis, etc.)

As the 1980s draw to a close, the west coast United States gets word of grindcore, and a substyle of hardcore dubbed powerviolence begins development. Having the structure and intensity of grindcore, but often interjecting slow, sludgy riffs midway through the runtime (or as an outro), powerviolence quickly caught on, with waves of bands such as Infest, Spazz, and eventually Nails and Magrudergrind carrying the torch. As post-hardcore (and its spinoff emocore) evolves into emo and screamo, the initial wave of screamo bands started to take notes from this powerviolence style, creating the portmanteau of emoviolence. Bands from this scene include Orchid, pageninetynine, and Jerome's Dream.

Recommended powerviolence listening:
1. No Comment - Downsided (1992)
2. Spazz - Crush Kill Destroy (1999)
3. Orchid - Chaos is Me (1999)
4. Infest - No Man's Slave (2002)
5. Nails - Unsilent Death (2010)

Each of the subgenres initially developed in the 1980s continue to thrive in their own circles throughout the 1990s, but it is actually those that combined with metal that created some of the most significant output. Metalcore produced the subgenre of mathcore, which has had consistently inventive and creative releases since its inception. Grindcore reigns supreme with more and more influence from death metal, as seen in bands such as Brutal Truth and the great Napalm Death. Crust punk, melodic hardcore, and post-hardcore are all reaching their heyday. Despite all the subgenre success, classic hardcore punk finds itself taking the backseat to other styles of alternative music, such as pop punk, emo, and grunge. Though there are certainly significant albums being released in this time, such as Poison Idea's Feel the Darkness, hardcore seems to have faded in comparison to the genres it created.

Recommended '90s hardcore:
1. Poison Idea - Feel the Darkness (1990)
2. Bad Religion - Against the Grain (1990)
3. Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come (1998)
4. Botch - We Are the Romans (1999)
5. Catharsis - Passion (1999)

The most recent development in hardcore subgenres was introduced in the early '90s. The idea is called beatdown hardcore, commonly referred to as simply beatdown, or if you're checking Wikipedia it could be called heavy hardcore (a name I personally find to be redundant). Beatdown took metalcore's idea of the breakdown and turned it up to eleven. Much of hardcore's recent "tough guy" demeanor and imagery owes itself to this style, as its aggression and boastful lyrical content often reflect a sense of overconfidence and "violent inspiration," something on which prior punk styles tended to be more neutral. Much of beatdown's sound is a result of the first wave of NYHC, with bands like Madball and Hatebreed starting the (mad)ball rolling on the sound. The style has seen a recent revitalization with Terror, Rise of the Northstar, and Knocked Loose.

Recommended beatdown listening:
1. Madball - Set It Off (1994)
2. Hatebreed - Satisfaction is the Death of Desire (1997)
3. Terror - One With the Underdogs (2004)
4. Rise of the Northstar - Welcame (2014)
5. Knocked Loose - Laugh Tracks (2016)

Hardcore in the new century is almost completely overrun by its subgenres. In the 2000s, much of the output was either mathcore (Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan) or grindcore (Pig Destroyer, Discordance Axis). The 2010s continued the trend, focusing heavily on mostly metalcore. As bands in that genre stray further from the initial hardcore sound, metalcore becomes a beast of its own to discuss. Grindcore and powerviolence are being kept fresh by bands like Nails, Cattle Decapitation, and Wormrot. Hardcore and black metal have even joined in the case of Kvelertak. Despite all of the attention given to the subgenres, hardcore fans have shed light on a variety of more classic-sounding bands, such as Have Heart, American Nightmare, Outbreak, Ceremony, and Righteous Jams.

Recommended '00s and '10s hardcore listening:
1. Pig Destroyer - Prowler in the Yard (2001)
2. Converge - Jane Doe (2001)
3. Cursed - Two (2005)
4. Kvelertak - Kvelertak (2010)
5. Terror - Keepers of the Faith (2010)

Hardcore punk remains one of the most versatile and influential styles of music, not only in the extreme music community, but in rock as a whole. Whether it's an old Dead Kennedys record or the newest Otoboke Beaver (seriously, Japanese hardcore is great; do research on that genre if you're interested, because I omitted that substyle from this entry for the sake of brevity) album, hardcore will always have a solidified place in the history of music. Rock, punk, and metal all rely on the existence of hardcore, and thus it holds an insane amount of worth in the bigger musical discussion.

[Side note: Hope you enjoyed this incredibly long entry! Hardcore has a LOT of history, but I wanted to keep my overall blog about metal, so I didn't want to split this up into multiple entries. Next week's will be very much shorter, and open up more room for any sort of possible discussion. Thanks for checking this out!]