Metalcore

Metalcore is an incredibly misunderstood genre term, and goes forever unappreciated by many "true metal" elitists due to its connotation to be whiny, "too poppy," or whatever else people use to describe the scene that appeared in the genre in the mid- to late-2000s. What I aim to do here is to shed some light on the origins and history of the genre, and hopefully draw in new fans from both in and outside of the metal community.

Metalcore, or "metallic hardcore" as some will hear it described, is exactly what the namesake would suggest: a combination of metal music and hardcore punk. If you're a repeated reader of these genre timelines, then you'll know that this is not the first time this combination has been attempted (see: thrash metal and grindcore), but what differentiates metalcore from these prior styles really lies in one fundamental: the breakdown. Metalcore focuses heavily on the hardcore side of things, injecting metal's technicality and/or tone into what by all accounts would simply be an energetic hardcore band. The breakdown is a point in a track, usually towards the middle, where the tempo slows and riffs emerge that are meant to initiate moshing as a form of crowd participation. Moshing can be found in nearly every metal genre, but metalcore aims to make it a staple.

Metalcore saw its first wave in the early 1990s. Hardcore punk bands like Integrity, Rorschach, Earth Crisis, Starkweather, Merauder, Converge, and Deadguy were among the first to produce the metalcore sound. The death metal and thrash metal influence shows clearly in a lot of these bands, despite the framework of their material being relatively textbook hardcore. Anywhere from Black Sabbath to Joy Division to Celtic Frost could have some sort of contributing factor to the metalcore ideal. Some of these bands, like Merauder, even took influence from early groove metal and the booming New York hardcore scene. As the 1990s went on, more and more bands began to gain traction, including Hatebreed, Shai Hulud, Catharsis, Poison the Well, Acme, Cave In, and Zao. Bands like this, with a massive influx of unified would, would be the ones to carve the niche that defines and codifies metalcore as it is today.

Recommended '90s metalcore listening:
1. Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow (1991)
2. Earth Crisis - Destroy the Machines (1995)
3. Hatebreed - Satisfaction is the Death of Desire (1997)
4. Zao - Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest (1998)
5. Poison the Well - The Opposite of December (1999)

A subgenre development nearly as old as the genre itself but taking a much more chaotic track is called mathcore. What mathcore does as a style is takes the already raw, aggressive and spastic metalcore and injects it with dissonant, angular riffing, unconventional and constantly shifting time signatures, and an unparalleled sense of compositional incomprehensibility. Made popular by bands such as Deadguy, Botch, Converge, and of course the ever-popular The Dillinger Escape Plan, the 1990s saw incredible artistic merit in the subgenre. Linked closely to grindcore, the 2000s saw bands such as Ion Dissonance, Gaza, Daughters, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, and Car Bomb, among others. The style is still prevalent and boundary-pushing today.

Recommended mathcore listening:
1. Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker (1995)
2. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity (1999)
3. Botch - We Are the Romans (1999)
4. Converge - Jane Doe (2001)
5. Gaza - I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die (2006)

Metalcore thrived in the 2000s, and its style began to take a drastic shift away from what had previously existed. Obviously, metallic hardcore bands continued strong: Converge, Shai Hulud, Poison the Well, Integrity, and Hatebreed all continued strong well into the decade. New metallic hardcore bands would pop up left and right, with releases from bands like Cursed, Every Time I Die, Skycamefalling, Hopesfall, Norma Jean, Terror, Nostromo, and Kickback. However, some metalcore bands would often inject more and more clean-sung, melodic death metal-inspired accentuations to the genre, resulting indirectly in the creation of melodic metalcore (which I will give its own entry in the future). Among these bands were Misery Signals, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, August Burns Red, Underoath, and Undying. This would eventually lead to genre speciation, with bands like Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, and All That Remains holding the helm of melodic metalcore, an evolutionary offshoot of metallic hardcore, and often receiving the brunt of criticisms from "true metal" communities. Progressive metalcore began to show up as well, taking technical and avant-garde aspects of progressive metal and breathing new life into the very formula that metalcore had ridden on for a decade now. Bands like SikTh, Between the Buried and Me, Burst, and (arguably) early-career Mastodon all contributed to this sound distinct but reminiscent of mathcore.

Recommended '00s metalcore listening:
1. 7 Angels 7 Plagues - Jhazmyne's Lullaby (2001)
2. Norma Jean - Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child (2002)
3. Between the Buried and Me - Colors (2007)
4. Misery Signals - Controller (2008)
5. Converge - Axe to Fall (2009)

Let's backtrack a bit. Also in the 1990s arose a subgenre that, in my personal opinion, has done nothing but improve with time: deathcore. Though it didn't gain widespread attention or traction until the early and mid-2000s (explaining its placement in the timeline), deathcore aimed to combine the existing metalcore sound with the growled vocals and blast beats of death metal. The first handful of bands to use this sound, such as Damaged, Day of Suffering, Deformity, and Abnegation, often took elements of deathgrind as well, making the sound far more inaccessible than standard metalcore. As the style began to solidify into more of its now-recognizable sound though, bands like Animosity, The Red Chord, Despised Icon, and Job for a Cowboy aided it in eventually sweeping the world of MySpace. Big bands appeared in the late-2000s, among them Whitechapel, All Shall Perish, Chelsea Grin, Suicide Silence, Carnifex, Oceano, Impending Doom, After the Burial, and Winds of Plague. The subgenre was often held to a very low standard, as the gimmicks of the genre eventually became pitfalls, and the whole movement seemed to be very follow-the-leader. Since this wave of popularity though, there have been bands like Fit for an Autopsy, Thy Art is Murder, and Shadow of Intent that continue to breathe new and amazing life into the deathcore world. Also there's a bunch of "fake slam death metal" bands out there like Within Destruction that have created their own microcosm in the style.

Recommended deathcore listening:
1. Deformity - Murder Within Sin (1999)
2. The Red Chord - Fused Together in Revolving Doors (2002)
3. Whitechapel - This is Exile (2008)
4. Thy Art is Murder - Hate (2012)
5. Shadow of Intent - Melancholy (2019)

2010s metalcore still manages to take the forefront of both metal and punk scenes. Converge, Every Time I Die, and The Dillinger Escape Plan are still as strong as ever, if not stronger. Bands from the metallic hardcore style are coming back in a huge way, in what I've sometimes seen labeled as the "Entombedcore" movement; referencing the muddy, sludgy tone of the legendary Swedish death metal band Entombed. Bands like Code Orange, Knocked Loose, Jesus Piece, Vein, and early Oathbreaker all contributed greatly to the style's success. Atmospheric metalcore has begun to take a huge hold on the scene as well, with bands like Architects and Silent Planet carving a niche in the already booming progressive metalcore/djent scene (fronted by bands like Erra, Currents, and Northlane). Huge strides are being made with melodic metalcore-infused metalcore, further blurring the lines between the two, with bands such as Fit for a King, Oh Sleeper, Counterparts (also melodic hardcore, a genre of hardcore punk often wrongly-attributed to more traditional-sounding metalcore bands), and While She Sleeps. This isn't to say that classic metallic hardcore bands aren't as prevalent though, as new life is breathed into the genre every day with releases from bands like All Pigs Must Die, Rise of the Northstar, Incendiary, Ithaca, and Employed to Serve, among others. Also, RIP The Chariot, amirite?

Recommended '10s metalcore listening:
1. The Chariot - Long Live (2010)
2. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind (2012)
3. Erra - Augment (2013)
4. Architects - Lost Forever // Lost Together (2014)
5. Every Time I Die - Low Teens (2016)

Overall, metalcore is one of my personal favorite genres of metal. It's incredibly diverse; so many facets can be discovered and explored because of how flexible the idea of 'metal+hardcore' can be. Converge, Misery Signals, and Knocked Loose all sound so different from each other, but all exist under the same idea. That's the brilliance of a simple concept: the pieces fit together like it was meant to be. I trust that with these new, refreshing bands appearing so frequently, and the genre's rich history, metalcore will remain a strong and prevalent force in metal for years to come.

Note: Sorry for not getting an entry out last week, this whole self-quarantine thing has taken quite a toll on my work ethic, admittedly. It's not going to be very fun, but with so much extra time it's allowed me to not only discover more music, but even take more time to write some of my own. Just remember to stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands. Thank you for reading!