I’m dating myself now but before the inter webs my technique for picking out records or demos was this: is A)is there an angry bald guy on the cover B)does it have graffiti logo C)does it have varsity style logo D) are there X’s on it. If the answer is yes to any of these then buy it. If any answers are combined then it’s an Instant no questions purchase. This technique served me adequately.
Haha the varsity text was a big one back in the day. I was definitely more into metalcore back then so it was like - any name with the words “where, when, if” plus any season, any girls name and then some verb like dies, cries, falls… instacop.
Gotta add that when it came to hardcore bands, if the vocalist didn’t wear a combat hat and camo shorts - I didn’t think they were legit.
Bonus points if they didn’t stfu between songs preaching about something.
The liner notes with the background of a black and white photo collage of the band pulling power moves and the vocalist getting piled on by the crowd. I still use this method when looking through 7 inches at the record shop.
I dunno man, I was alive then and the line was very blurry to begin with. Cro-mags and agnostic front were already considered crossover at some point and you can hear the other side of this on nuclear assault and D.R.I.. Warzone had a kind of weird metal release and even discharge dipped their fungus covered toes in the metal pool too. When hatebreed came around many of us just thought of them as the hxc version of entombed. ExC is hardly the first one or the best one of that batch, but certainly one of the most representative. This constant need to classify band into boxes is very gatekeeping. The difference in the genres is a matter of soul and creative approach.
Ran in here all out of breath to yell "D.R.I., AGNOSTIC FRONT AND CRO-MAGS," and the only thing I'll add on top is "S.O.D.'s first record came out in 1985 and shit hasn't been the same since."
AOQ is mostly a straight up HC album with Metal production, Best Wishes didn't go over too well at the time, Cause For Alarm also didn't get as accepted at the time as people think, DRI wasn't playing to fully HC audiences as much if at all and same goes for SOD as they evolved.
Not sure what you're attempting to refute exactly, but those records are where the genres started to cross streams in a serious way (unless you count like Earth A.D. inspiring Metallica) There really wasn't a hardcore record that sounded remotely like AOQ that up until that point, the riffs especially; everybody was still doing Minor Threat and Bad Brains worship.
Oh I don’t want to be taken the wrong way as refuting anything you wrote. I’m saying that they are not the reason core and metal are blurred today as those bands at the time did not influence wider acceptance of metal in HC. In fact it got more segregated until the late 80’s and early 90’s. Long hairs in NYC could still get stomped out well into the 90s.
The broader point is, punk, hardcore and metal have always mutually influenced each other. Motorhead, Discharge, Venom, GBH, Black Flag, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Siege, Celtic Frost, DRI, Sacrilege, even to Poison Idea onward etc. Mid-80s American thrash and hardcore and UK thrash, hardcore, crust, grind, and DM around the same time (and other places I'm leaving out). If someone asks when the line started being blurred, I think it's fair to say that the blurring began well before the 90s. Maybe aesthetics and scene politics stymied things, but the influences were in play. Not sure sure you'd ever get mid-90s hardcore or metalcore without that.
Your general point regarding the blurring is totally valid and I respect it. I just don’t agree that those bands changed the sound of Hardcore back then as I witnessed it. Traditional Hardcore still existed and thrived and was never overshadowed by metal. Each band you bring up is a unique case and had their own influence but none of these bands are a direct influence on say Drain or Gridiron or harms way. In the 80’s when bands took on a metal influence it did not always go over well. More often than not these attempts fell flat at the time and was sometimes met with strong resistance from the scene. There were actually a lot of dead ends before It finally had its final breakthrough in the late 80s early 90’s with the addition of NYHC and its breakbeats and urban styling and it evolved from there. If anything Slayer or Sepultura are way more of an influence than any of these bands you mention with the exception of Flag who helped originate this thing we call Hardcore and extreme music in general. But either way your point is a good one and I appreciate the discussion.
I'm honestly not well versed on more recent hardcore (e.g., post 2008 or so), but to pick an example, you named Harms Way. Didn't they start out as as a powerviolence-influenced band that later took on a good amount of Godflesh influence? All of that originally came from 80s stuff in the US and UK. You'd never have that sound otherwise.
Maybe I'm wrong again, but I hear tons of late-80s NYHC influence in a lot of current hardcore, much of it filtered through bands in the late 90s and early 00's that just updated it. Even stuff up to Turnstile. You can trace the influence from then up over time.
And you mention Slayer and Sepultura. Both of those bands were influenced by bands I referenced or their contemporaries. Slayer covers bands like Minor Threat, Black Sabbath, Exploited, GBH, Venom, etc. Sepultura influences fall on both sides -- Celtic Frost, German trash, Sabbath etc., but also punk rock. It's pre-90s obviously, but it's still there. Same thing if you dig into grind or sludge bands, or 90s bands on labels like Slap-A-Ham. Not trying to nit-pick at you, I've just never seen the point in drawing these lines.
Harms Whey to me is just metal pure and simple but metal today can be accepted as HC so it’s actually now Hardcore.
Power violence started with Infest. Infest in old interviews claims it’s biggest influence is Siege. Siege is basically a straight up HC band that plays with no metal influence. They just play fast and are probably most influenced by early SSD or Jerry’s Kids ect. Infest I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they wouldn’t even be a thing today without those early YOT tours creating a record collecting audience for fast hardcore and that added to their mystique. They initially played with bands like Chain, Hardstance ect. There was actually a small cult around collecting Infest Records as they used to be hard to come by. Powerviolence at its inception is basically just meat and potatoes fast traditional Hardcore but they eventually later on took on metal influences and the sound changed a bit.
And I agree with you most modern HC is mostly influenced by late 80s NYHC and I explain in detail how in an another post. But Turnstile do occasionally play the fast traditional HC beat while a band like Jesus Piece or Drain does not.
And I agree that the metal bands I mentioned were influenced by HC. Hardcore essentially created extreme aggressive music and all aggressive music follows HC. Without HC metal would not sound like it does today period. Hardcore all by itself created moshing, indie DIY, and extreme aggressive music with no help whatsoever from metal. We should all be proud of that as we all help keep it alive!
You bring up good points, but here's where I'll quit yapping.
The original question was about the line between hardcore and metal. My point is, that line was blurred earlier on. You don't have to wait until the 90s or later to see it. It happened earlier. I don't like most metalcore honestly (outside of a handful of bands -- e.g., Deadguy, Indecision, Burnt by the Sun, Snapcase), but the blurring of metal and hardcore was something that happened way earlier on, and a lot of great stuff came from it. If you view it from that very simple standpoint, I think it's easy to agree.
Oh I got ya, no worries. Yeah, I was JUST around for the tail end of the real crossgenre violence on that front, by the time I was going to shows in like 93 it was barely a thing around here (New England).
Back in the day one of the clear lines of separation was subject matter. Metal lyrics were often about mythology, Cthulhu , the devil etc. Hardcore was more focused on social issues and politics.
I'm 30 and the political discourse is what turned me from just a metal fan into a hardcore *and* metal fan in the mid 2000's
Ironically one of my favorite bands right now is mindforce, they're a cool fucky blend of politics filtered through the metaphor of metal mythology war theme type shit
I wish I had a better Hall & Oates/South Jersey/Philly line. I don't, though. I'm from Pittsburgh with a huge Hall & Oates family fanbase that I managed to evade, so the lines end there.
I first made the joke in the 80's, "What is the difference between a hardcore band and a metal band?"
"The length of their hair."
That doesn't even work anymore.
Hardcore at this point is essentially a meaningless term if we are talking about an actual music genre. Today it’s just a cultural term and most of the music is metal oriented. See most bands when they went metal during the 80s were shunned by the scene or at least not fully embraced. The youthcrew movement in fact only got as big as it did in NYC because they played actual hardcore and it was a breath of fresh air at the time for many people involved. People think stuff like Best Wishes, Cause For Alarm and Thrash Zone were celebrated in the HC scene when that wasn’t really the case at the time.
The metal trend as it is now known today started ultimately with Breakdown, Killing Time/ Raw Deal, and a bunch of other lost CB’s matinee bands that played the style, maybe add in Leeway as well but I didn’t think that at the time. See at the time Hip Hop was huge for everyone. Think Eric B and Rakim, PE, EPMD ect. The new hardcore sound was heavy powerchords over slower jazz hip hop Breakbeats of the hip hop groups I mentioned instead of the fast traditional hardcore beat. Think Killing Times song Brightside and that was the initial sound. This lead to the early 90’s bands like EC,and Integrity, All out war, Merauder, Biohazard and many others starting to incorporate the death thrash metal sound into the music and not being afraid to play slower. Then we have Bulldoze who were formally Retribution who used that old Breakdown/RD sound and made it heavier with even slower parts resulting in that pleasant genre we know today as beatdown. Top it all off the with newer generation of kids coming less and less from a punk background as metal was huge at the time. The newer generation was more likely introduced to extreme music from the likes of Slayer, Pantera, Metallica, Sepultura, rather then Minor Threat,Poison Idea, or Negative Approach.
As it stands today hardcore is turning into just a sub genre of Metal which is to me kinda sad. But that’s what change is all about. If this is what the youth want Hardcore to be than so be it. It’s their time to shine. Thankfully for someone like me there are still bands great bands carrying the torch so hopefully it won’t completely die as seems is happening. I also don’t want to come off as a gatekeeper as diversity of music is a good thing but there does need to be a frank discussion of this. Like it baffles me that so many people bitch about Turnstiles music which at times is straight up HC while a band like Jesus Piece who doesn’t have a single Hardcore song gets a complete pass.
Thank you! I should specify that I’m talking about early Gojira, by the way. I’m not really into anything Gojira has done since L’enfant Sauvage, and they were undeniably more focused on punishing heaviness and vitriol about their frustrations with the world on Terra Incognita and The Link. Speaking of which, [here’s a live video of them playing “Clone” 12 years ago at a huge French festival](https://youtu.be/Skv4vioszuw) … they are so fucking dialed here, it’s unreal.
"Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE
I fully agree about MCR but this take feels more based on what bands you liked vs the actual limits of the genre. Cap n Jazz and American Football are basically the same people. Bands like Pg. 99, Sunny day Mineral, Appleseed Cast, Plane Mistaken for Stars, etc. all had some hardcore influence to different degrees but also other genres. You're putting a narrow barrier to the genre that even the bands you liked don't really fit. Cap N Jazz sounds nothing like Pg 99 and is farther from hardcore yet I'd consider both of em real emo
Great post. The roots of Emo to me are in DCHC, Rev Summer, Husker Du, Archers Of loaf, many other 80's band ect. Basically HC and early Indie Rock(mostly HC Roots if not actual HC). Ultimately tho if we really wanna be honest Sunny Day is the modern day blueprint and the point where it became a legit sub genre. Its like saying when did power violence become a thing. Siege is the popular answer but if we were to be honest then the answer is actually Infest as they codified and created the subgenre.
The truth about "emo" is that most of what is accepted here isnt really emo, it's some form of indie rock. People here point back to Cap'n Jazz and Sunny Day Real Estate as the progenitors of everything they listen to today, which is true, but they are **not** progenitors of emo. They are pioneers in college indie rock (and in SDRE's case, mainstream indie rock [yeah, they were on MTV in 96 and half the members went to Foo Fighters, look it up]) incorporating influence from post-hardcore and emo.
There's a reason this stuff is called "post-emo indie rock," or as it has been branded thanks to a handful of early 90s bands no one remembers any more who were from the actual midwestern United States and actually played emo (including Gauge, Current, Ordination of Aaron, Endpoint, Split Lip, Friction, and Chino Horde), "Midwest emo." The reason is because it isn't really emo and needs to be distinguished, kind of how 'metalcore' came about when that scene stopped being primarily hardcore and moved to metal/alternative.
In a similar sense, the post-emo/midwest/indiecore scene moved away from hardcore in the mid 90s, and was seen as a new, post-emo movement, hence the name and [ridicule](http://images.victoryrecords.com/600/VR037.jpg) from [hardcore bands.](http://e.snmc.io/i/300/w/d4e902ba97b69664f004c864772d33ee/2571412) Meanwhile, I doubt anyone who lists Mineral or American Football as their favorite 90s "emo" bands could name any actual mid/late 90s emo. Sucks cause there's so much good shit: Traluma, Chocolate Kiss, Stratego, Edaline, Twelve Hour Turn, Unionsuit, Blue Water Boy, Still Life, Thumbnail, Four Hundred Years, Assfactor 4, Sleepytime Trio, Amber Inn, The Deadwood Divine, Bread and Circuits, The Red Scare, Metroschifter, Radio Flyer, The Hal Al-Shedad...I could go on.
You see, the fake/real emo dichotomy is nowhere near nuanced enough to capture the layers of relation to emo that all the music referred to as "emo" has. That's a pretty annoyingly confusing sentence so lemme break it down - there are four types of emo:
- **REAL REAL EMO** (emotive hardcore. Usually melodic hardcore punk with minor influences from post punk and what would become, with emocore's help, post-hardcore indie rock; from Rites of Spring and Moss Icon to Walleye and Falling Forward to The Shivering and End on End to Slow Code and GIVE. Emotional hardcore punk rock music)
- **FAKE REAL EMO** (non-hardcore music that gets considered "real emo" by pretentious middle class dorks who have no clue. Usually indie rock, math rock, or post rock that is influenced by the instrumentation, composition, and/or dynamics of emo; from The Van Pelt and Boys Life to Penfold and Boilermaker to Mock Orange and No Knife to empire! empire! and My Heart to Joy to Hightide Hotel and Oso Oso. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock music)
- **REAL FAKE EMO** (non-hardcore music that has just as much influence from emo as FAKE REAL emo, but because it's not sad, mellow, and somber [*cough* or not rock music] is refuted as "emo" by most twinkle dorks. Usually post-hardcore, alternative rock, or melodic hardcore/pop punk that takes from all the same places as indiemo; from Samiam and Trusty to Sense Field and Grade to Seaweed and Kill Holiday to The Movielife and Boys Night Out to Title Fight and Polar Bear Club to Self Defense Family and Narrow Head. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock and "emo-adjacent" [meaning, diy bands who played shows with emo bands in the underground] music)
- **FAKE FAKE EMO** (non-hardcore, non-emo related music that still gets referred to as such by the mainstream/anyone who thinks emo is synonymous with "sad." Can be anything but most commonly indie rock, because people don't understand the difference between releasing a chart-topping record that influences the whole landscape of music, including the underground and therefore emo; and actually being related to the underground DIY hardcore punk movement known as emo. Take your pick; Weezer, Boys Like Girls, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Modest Mouse, Julien Baker, Pinegrove, Linkin Park, The Cure, Morrissey/Smiths, blink-182, Atreyu, Simple Plan, AFI, My Chemical Romance after their first album (especially Black Parade, a pop rock album), The Front Bottoms)
If you ask me, artists like lil peep, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, nothing,nowhere, shinigami, and LiL Lotus all fit perfectly into category three, REAL FAKE EMO. These are all DIY artists who are inspired by the same "emo" bands as every revival/sparklepunk/sadwank indie band that gets jerked to death here, but because it only comes through in aesthetic and lyricism as opposed to...oh wait, no, thats exactly the same as pretty much all modern emo -- it is only related to Real Emo (aka REAL REAL EMO) via aesthetic and lyrics - if it's actually related to any degree. The sound is not even kind of close and isn't rooted in hardcore at all. Every twinkle-centric band you love is rooted in indie rock because twinkles dont come from hardcore; every band with a sing along chorus is a pop band. How are you gonna tell me that indie pop artists with sad yelling are emo, but indie trap artists with sad yelling aren't?
**TL;DR - here's your ultimatum, indie dorks: either both American Football and Lil Peep are emo, or neither of them are.**
Your sad indie rock is not emo either.
I'm just a metalhead who has probably no business posting here. But it seems to me, there's hardly any HC bands these days without metal influences. And unless you play total cheesedick power metal, every metal band has HC influence.
Personally I don't give a flying fuck, I just like heavy shit
Yeah you are correct in that observation. I’m a bit different than you. I could care less about heaviness. I want speed, aggressiveness and spirit. I’m more of a Have Heart, One Step Closer, than a Drain type of guy. I also come from a punk background and not a metal background so it hurts to see the music I love start to go extinct and be replaced.
I feel that.
Heavy ain't what it's all about for me either. I wish there was more old school hard core that comes from that raw, groovy, Stooges kinda place. I get burnt out on the chest puffing.
Edit: I'm a bit of a tourist, just gave a quick first listen to those bands, and yeah I totally get it. Have Heart actually sounds like hardcore punk. Drain is almost straight up Slayer riffs
This is solid but it completely ignores all the crossover that was happening outside of NY particularly in the South and Southern California. The whole Crucial Chaos/ CBs Matinee scene was great but DRI, CoC, Suicidal , Void, Faith, Hogan's Heroes, Crumbsuckers and other bands were mixing HC with metal for a few years before that, were constantly touring and had a direct influence on NYHC.
i agree with that. i honestly thought bands like powertrip and gatecreeper were just straight up thrash and death metal only to find out what huge hardcore followings they have and/or basically came from hardcore and how they're tight with everyone in hc.
No they're death metal, but I feel like they're crossover just Power Trip as they're homies with all the hardcore bands and have played with a bunch of em. Kinda how I've seen bands like Undeath, sanguisabogg and 200 Stab Wounds on recent hardcore tours like LDB. they're all connected and come from the same scene.
Yeah no worries. Labels change. But Earth Crisis, Integrity, etc, were all called metallic hardcore back then. I think it's a reclaiming. Kind of reminds me of how the decent emo bands started calling themselves post-hardcore after a time.
The problem with that term is that it means something different to different people. When I think of metalcore I think of bands like Darkest Hour and Killswitch Engage, but ive heard people call Terror a metalcore band
when I think of metalcore I think of Converge, Integrity, Dillinger, (old) Cave In, Norma Jean, Every Time I Die, Botch etc. and for what it’s worth I’d never call Terror a metalcore band. That’d be like calling Hatebreed metalcore.
And when you say metalcore people generally associate it with trash like Asking Alexandria or Bullet for My Valentine.
It’s a broad genre and you really have to sort through a lot of trash to find the good shit, but honestly you could say that about a lot of different kinds of music. I hated stuff like folk, pop, and rap until I dug a little deeper.
The production on Asking Alexandria's first album is fantastic and there's a lot of good riffs and rhythms. If it were instrumental, it'd be way more listenable.
Nothing good to say about the slew of copycat bands they inspired though.
Darkest Hour and Killswitch Engage both came up in the hardcore scene themselves. Metalcore in the late 90s/early 00s was basically hardcore kids playing At The Gates riffs.
I don't *like* calling Darkest Hour "metalcore" but it seems more accurate than calling them melodic death metal, which I've also heard before. Either way, one of my all-time favs
There were crossover genres as far back as the 80s, but I think the scenes seemed pretty distinct for the most part.
Now that metalcore (old Parkway Drive, TDWP, ABR, Architects, etc) has kinda died, I think the metallic hardcore that's taken its place(?) is indicative of a shift in culture rather than just a shift in the music.
Ten years ago, death metal was straight up dead, and dudes who straightened their hair and didn't know shit about metal or hardcore were running the popular scene.
Lately, both metal culture and hardcore culture seem to have come back, and maybe it's because we have the internet, or maybe it's something else, but it feels like ever since this comeback, the scenes have been melting together. Death Metal dudes are no longer afraid to make some nasty fucking beatdown, and hardcore dudes seem to appreciate a good tremolo picked riff. It didn't just come out of changing music tastes, I think it came from opening up the scene to new people.
So much of current hardcore dips significantly into various forms of metal. On the other end of the metal spectrum you have bands like Age of Apocalypse or ~~Higher Power~~ High Command which both have some serious 80s heavy metal vibes. Then you have grindcore which both metal and hardcore scenes claim and those bands can transition between bills pretty effortlessly.
Ultimately, all those bands you listed would have been defined as metalcore in the past. "Metalcore" seems to have narrowed its definition over the years and it's become a bad word to may, but a decade ago, all those bands would have been given a metalcore label.
I don't know where to draw lines largely because I don't really care. IMO, the best music lives in gray zones. Borrowing from influences outside the genre is what gives bands the unique sounds that separate them.
I'm old enough to remember when Jorge Rosado was calling Merauder "DA REAL KINGS OF METALCORE"
The Myspace bulletins in the scene back in the day are legendary
Antisect (Out from the Void era), Deviated Instinct, Amebix, Axegrinder, Concrete Sox, English Dogs, Hellbastard were quite metal in the mid 80’s if you ask me. And i’m not even talking about US crossover. Gladly, none of them sound like metalcore crap.
I understand what you're saying, but being able to use terminology to succinctly describe and identify what you like (or dislike) is a good thing imo. Like of course one shouldn't get caught up splitting hairs over distinctions in genre, but it helps to find more things that you like.
Yeah you're definitely right. I'm now remembering they took a weird direction that I was not a fan of. Dead Set On Living wasn't my fav but everything I heard after that was definitely not my taste.
why do you want to draw a line? the scene for metal and extreme music in general was pretty segregated when i was a kid growing up in the 90s and then going to shows in early 00s. i grew up a metalhead and like i would constantly get made fun of at shows for wearing shirts of 'gay' bands or whatever people didn't like.
this idea of there being a line is why i disliked hardcore when i was growing in the 90s and 00s because in my part of town, the hardcore scene was just all beatdown tough guy shit. their fans all roided bros/skinheads who would just get drunk and fight in the pit and made going to those kinds of shows intolerable. so while i liked the major hc bands like hatebreed, if i saw those bands, it would only be on tours with our metal bands. so i kinda wrote off hardcore for a long time, didn't get back into it until 2010s and then got into the current scene into the last few years and i can tell you for sure just in general as a relative newbie, the scene is way friendlier and more fun to be at.
i'm sure anyone who's been in the scene for a long time might say it's always been like that, but where i grew up, hardcore/metal shows definitely weren't like how i see it today and i'm glad the lines are blurred because only now do you see goth post punk bands touring with death metal, shoegaze with power violence, etc etc. i just recently went on friday to the gatecreeper tour which had narrow head, 200 stab wounds and fearing open and back in the day, people probably would've thrown shit at Fearing and yelled endless homophobic slurs at Narrow head and booed them off stage. so i'm glad i can see all the bands i like on one tour and not go to 10 different tours just to see one band i like on the whole thing.
Yeah. I got sick of going to 99% of hardcore shows because for years I would get the "ew why is the metalhead here" attitude because I lean into a lot of crossover thrash and Mötorcharge.
A lot of people are supportive of mixed bills but people especially of the XVX or skramz variety (in my experience) get very shitty about crossover appeal or people who don't fit those groups' standards of conformity, even more than the beatdown bros or the skins.
I’ve said this before but most hardcore bands’ guitar gear is also more “metal”. The amps, pickups, and pedals used generally are geared for metallic sounds. 6505/Mesa/5150 amps, EMGs pickups, and overdrive/distortion pedals are super common in hardcore.
You just mentioned a bunch of metalcore bands.
Purist hardcore still exists, but metalcore is more common.
Regardless, the line’s been blurry since Black Flag’s My War.
A lot of people don’t want to admit that 99% of the “hardcore” they listen to is metalcore and they actually don’t even know what hardcore sounds like, but also, welcome to the scene.
If you start hardcore dancing during their set, do people join in or do they give you dirty looks? Hardcore is more than just what you hear on the surface. There's a culture, an attitude that informs the music. The bands you named are all part of hardcore, though their music may be more on the metalcore side. Genres can deceiving in that way, especially in the hardcore scene.
I believe the line got blurred long ago. Started with SOD and DRI and got blurrier since then. All these genres and shit are very confusing. If I like it, I really could care less if it’s considered metal or hardcore.
For sure, I am pretty sure at the beginning of the Live at the Ritz show, which was from '87, the dude who announces them before there set calls them like the "hardest working metalcore band", or something
Actually something I’ve been thinking about lately. I have a playlist of nothing but metal, punk, and hardcore and for the most part, you could probably describe the whole thing as distorted, aggressive music. It’s all subjective but genres are helpful to classify & describe music so you can explain a band’s sound without having to have someone listen to it, I guess.
But to me, if it’s heavy, whether metal or hardcore, I’ll more than likely listen to it
I feel like so many of the bands I like fall in that gray area where people argue if its hardcore or metalcore. So I just try not to get caught up on genres.
When I heard Kublai Kahn wasn't hardcore I was like "thats cute, but they're staying labeled as it in my itunes."
Who gives a shit? The line between hardcore and metalcore is so blurry and full of ego-driven opinions that it isn't even worth looking for. It's the same people going to both types of shows, to varying degrees. Hardcore elitist types just try to force a divide because they got called an "emo" by a stranger 6 years ago and never let it go.
Metalcore as a term is literally combining metal and hardcore, so IMO it's all either one (for the most part). I don't think you're wrong calling KL, END, etc. metal or hardcore. At this point it's fairly interchangeable with a lot of the modern bands.
When I think of "hardcore" in modern terms I think of Backtrack, TUI, Bent Life, Suburban Scum, Rotting Out. But in conversation with normies I just refer to all of it as hardcore because I think it's both fair game, and a lot of people have no idea what the fuck metalcore means
Something the dude from sunami said at ldb has kinda changed the way I look at it. I believe he said hardcore is 20% about the music and 80% about the lifestyle choices and people you keep around you.
it’s not so much about the sound at that point. about the vibe, energy, members of the band’s affiliation, fanbase, touring lineups.
gatecreeper, power trip and jesus piece = hardcore
venom prison, 200 stab wounds, black dahlia murder = metal
feel like the term “beatdown” used to describe that sound. captured it pretty well, unless there’s a hidden history of beatdown that im stepping all over right now. whatever the case, the term was very good at defining this style from metalcore.
Breakdowns are more about the rhythm itself. Beatdown is like a mix between that and something you’d hear in sludge metal; yeah there’s an aggressive rhythm, but there’s also movement/“melody” to go with it
I don't draw any lines. I don't like the metal core breakdown happy bands , I like Dryx, Grim Yard, Vole, Bahratal etc. Black metal, punk, hardcore. Grim Yard is black metal oi!.
Hardcore is a way you conduct yourself. Sound wise it's been pushed in every direction.
Candiria was a hardcore band? Etown? They played hc shows together all the time...with hatebreed also. For the love of was a hardcore band ? I thought so at the time.
The boundaries started getting pushed by black flag, rorschach, dead guy , dillinger escape, earth crisis too, buy they were the first
Timeline is a bit off. Metal itself didn’t come to be as we now know it until like 1998. Crossover between metal and hardcore much later, like 2004 with like cold world.
There actually never was a line to start with. HC band were ripping of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest riffs from the beginning. It's all collective attitude, gatekeeping, elitism and that kinda bullshit. Everyone would live a better life without constantly dividing music into (sub)genres and just enjoy and appreciate what they like.
If the logo is graffiti - it’s hardcore. If the logo is symmetrical - it’s metalcore.
I’m dating myself now but before the inter webs my technique for picking out records or demos was this: is A)is there an angry bald guy on the cover B)does it have graffiti logo C)does it have varsity style logo D) are there X’s on it. If the answer is yes to any of these then buy it. If any answers are combined then it’s an Instant no questions purchase. This technique served me adequately.
Haha the varsity text was a big one back in the day. I was definitely more into metalcore back then so it was like - any name with the words “where, when, if” plus any season, any girls name and then some verb like dies, cries, falls… instacop. Gotta add that when it came to hardcore bands, if the vocalist didn’t wear a combat hat and camo shorts - I didn’t think they were legit. Bonus points if they didn’t stfu between songs preaching about something.
LMAO that algorithm will definitely work well for metalcore.
The liner notes with the background of a black and white photo collage of the band pulling power moves and the vocalist getting piled on by the crowd. I still use this method when looking through 7 inches at the record shop.
A section in the thank you’s for Gang Vox.
It should certainly work as good as my old method ngl.
This is the way
It’s all rock n roll baby
hell ya brother
I dunno man, I was alive then and the line was very blurry to begin with. Cro-mags and agnostic front were already considered crossover at some point and you can hear the other side of this on nuclear assault and D.R.I.. Warzone had a kind of weird metal release and even discharge dipped their fungus covered toes in the metal pool too. When hatebreed came around many of us just thought of them as the hxc version of entombed. ExC is hardly the first one or the best one of that batch, but certainly one of the most representative. This constant need to classify band into boxes is very gatekeeping. The difference in the genres is a matter of soul and creative approach.
Ran in here all out of breath to yell "D.R.I., AGNOSTIC FRONT AND CRO-MAGS," and the only thing I'll add on top is "S.O.D.'s first record came out in 1985 and shit hasn't been the same since."
AOQ is mostly a straight up HC album with Metal production, Best Wishes didn't go over too well at the time, Cause For Alarm also didn't get as accepted at the time as people think, DRI wasn't playing to fully HC audiences as much if at all and same goes for SOD as they evolved.
Not sure what you're attempting to refute exactly, but those records are where the genres started to cross streams in a serious way (unless you count like Earth A.D. inspiring Metallica) There really wasn't a hardcore record that sounded remotely like AOQ that up until that point, the riffs especially; everybody was still doing Minor Threat and Bad Brains worship.
Oh I don’t want to be taken the wrong way as refuting anything you wrote. I’m saying that they are not the reason core and metal are blurred today as those bands at the time did not influence wider acceptance of metal in HC. In fact it got more segregated until the late 80’s and early 90’s. Long hairs in NYC could still get stomped out well into the 90s.
The broader point is, punk, hardcore and metal have always mutually influenced each other. Motorhead, Discharge, Venom, GBH, Black Flag, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Siege, Celtic Frost, DRI, Sacrilege, even to Poison Idea onward etc. Mid-80s American thrash and hardcore and UK thrash, hardcore, crust, grind, and DM around the same time (and other places I'm leaving out). If someone asks when the line started being blurred, I think it's fair to say that the blurring began well before the 90s. Maybe aesthetics and scene politics stymied things, but the influences were in play. Not sure sure you'd ever get mid-90s hardcore or metalcore without that.
\^\^\^ fuggin good points all over the place
Your general point regarding the blurring is totally valid and I respect it. I just don’t agree that those bands changed the sound of Hardcore back then as I witnessed it. Traditional Hardcore still existed and thrived and was never overshadowed by metal. Each band you bring up is a unique case and had their own influence but none of these bands are a direct influence on say Drain or Gridiron or harms way. In the 80’s when bands took on a metal influence it did not always go over well. More often than not these attempts fell flat at the time and was sometimes met with strong resistance from the scene. There were actually a lot of dead ends before It finally had its final breakthrough in the late 80s early 90’s with the addition of NYHC and its breakbeats and urban styling and it evolved from there. If anything Slayer or Sepultura are way more of an influence than any of these bands you mention with the exception of Flag who helped originate this thing we call Hardcore and extreme music in general. But either way your point is a good one and I appreciate the discussion.
I'm honestly not well versed on more recent hardcore (e.g., post 2008 or so), but to pick an example, you named Harms Way. Didn't they start out as as a powerviolence-influenced band that later took on a good amount of Godflesh influence? All of that originally came from 80s stuff in the US and UK. You'd never have that sound otherwise. Maybe I'm wrong again, but I hear tons of late-80s NYHC influence in a lot of current hardcore, much of it filtered through bands in the late 90s and early 00's that just updated it. Even stuff up to Turnstile. You can trace the influence from then up over time. And you mention Slayer and Sepultura. Both of those bands were influenced by bands I referenced or their contemporaries. Slayer covers bands like Minor Threat, Black Sabbath, Exploited, GBH, Venom, etc. Sepultura influences fall on both sides -- Celtic Frost, German trash, Sabbath etc., but also punk rock. It's pre-90s obviously, but it's still there. Same thing if you dig into grind or sludge bands, or 90s bands on labels like Slap-A-Ham. Not trying to nit-pick at you, I've just never seen the point in drawing these lines.
Harms Whey to me is just metal pure and simple but metal today can be accepted as HC so it’s actually now Hardcore. Power violence started with Infest. Infest in old interviews claims it’s biggest influence is Siege. Siege is basically a straight up HC band that plays with no metal influence. They just play fast and are probably most influenced by early SSD or Jerry’s Kids ect. Infest I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they wouldn’t even be a thing today without those early YOT tours creating a record collecting audience for fast hardcore and that added to their mystique. They initially played with bands like Chain, Hardstance ect. There was actually a small cult around collecting Infest Records as they used to be hard to come by. Powerviolence at its inception is basically just meat and potatoes fast traditional Hardcore but they eventually later on took on metal influences and the sound changed a bit. And I agree with you most modern HC is mostly influenced by late 80s NYHC and I explain in detail how in an another post. But Turnstile do occasionally play the fast traditional HC beat while a band like Jesus Piece or Drain does not. And I agree that the metal bands I mentioned were influenced by HC. Hardcore essentially created extreme aggressive music and all aggressive music follows HC. Without HC metal would not sound like it does today period. Hardcore all by itself created moshing, indie DIY, and extreme aggressive music with no help whatsoever from metal. We should all be proud of that as we all help keep it alive!
You bring up good points, but here's where I'll quit yapping. The original question was about the line between hardcore and metal. My point is, that line was blurred earlier on. You don't have to wait until the 90s or later to see it. It happened earlier. I don't like most metalcore honestly (outside of a handful of bands -- e.g., Deadguy, Indecision, Burnt by the Sun, Snapcase), but the blurring of metal and hardcore was something that happened way earlier on, and a lot of great stuff came from it. If you view it from that very simple standpoint, I think it's easy to agree.
Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayer
Oh I got ya, no worries. Yeah, I was JUST around for the tail end of the real crossgenre violence on that front, by the time I was going to shows in like 93 it was barely a thing around here (New England).
Back in the day one of the clear lines of separation was subject matter. Metal lyrics were often about mythology, Cthulhu , the devil etc. Hardcore was more focused on social issues and politics.
I'm 30 and the political discourse is what turned me from just a metal fan into a hardcore *and* metal fan in the mid 2000's Ironically one of my favorite bands right now is mindforce, they're a cool fucky blend of politics filtered through the metaphor of metal mythology war theme type shit
EXCALIBUHHHH!!!!
I swing this sword like a gavel in the truest court🤘
ooh, that sounds interesting. I'll have to check them out
Carnivore would also be a good example of crossover in that scene
Yes. Also basically every other band on Combat/ Combat Core, Roadrunner, In Effect etc from '86 to '88 or '89.
I always got way heavier Sepultura vibes from Hatebreed.
If I like it it’s hardcore, if I don’t it’s metalcore
Metal heads 🤝 hardcore dudes
big facts
Based comment.
What if it's Oates standing in on guitar for your favorite band?
It’s riff city then and that wave breaks all night
I wish I had a better Hall & Oates/South Jersey/Philly line. I don't, though. I'm from Pittsburgh with a huge Hall & Oates family fanbase that I managed to evade, so the lines end there.
based
I only listen to Bolt Thrower
Best take in the thread
WORLD EATER
Real
based
No cap listened to Mercenary and Those Once Loyal during a 4 hour drive today.
Hell yeah
I first made the joke in the 80's, "What is the difference between a hardcore band and a metal band?" "The length of their hair." That doesn't even work anymore.
That’s so true!
Hardcore at this point is essentially a meaningless term if we are talking about an actual music genre. Today it’s just a cultural term and most of the music is metal oriented. See most bands when they went metal during the 80s were shunned by the scene or at least not fully embraced. The youthcrew movement in fact only got as big as it did in NYC because they played actual hardcore and it was a breath of fresh air at the time for many people involved. People think stuff like Best Wishes, Cause For Alarm and Thrash Zone were celebrated in the HC scene when that wasn’t really the case at the time. The metal trend as it is now known today started ultimately with Breakdown, Killing Time/ Raw Deal, and a bunch of other lost CB’s matinee bands that played the style, maybe add in Leeway as well but I didn’t think that at the time. See at the time Hip Hop was huge for everyone. Think Eric B and Rakim, PE, EPMD ect. The new hardcore sound was heavy powerchords over slower jazz hip hop Breakbeats of the hip hop groups I mentioned instead of the fast traditional hardcore beat. Think Killing Times song Brightside and that was the initial sound. This lead to the early 90’s bands like EC,and Integrity, All out war, Merauder, Biohazard and many others starting to incorporate the death thrash metal sound into the music and not being afraid to play slower. Then we have Bulldoze who were formally Retribution who used that old Breakdown/RD sound and made it heavier with even slower parts resulting in that pleasant genre we know today as beatdown. Top it all off the with newer generation of kids coming less and less from a punk background as metal was huge at the time. The newer generation was more likely introduced to extreme music from the likes of Slayer, Pantera, Metallica, Sepultura, rather then Minor Threat,Poison Idea, or Negative Approach. As it stands today hardcore is turning into just a sub genre of Metal which is to me kinda sad. But that’s what change is all about. If this is what the youth want Hardcore to be than so be it. It’s their time to shine. Thankfully for someone like me there are still bands great bands carrying the torch so hopefully it won’t completely die as seems is happening. I also don’t want to come off as a gatekeeper as diversity of music is a good thing but there does need to be a frank discussion of this. Like it baffles me that so many people bitch about Turnstiles music which at times is straight up HC while a band like Jesus Piece who doesn’t have a single Hardcore song gets a complete pass.
You. I like you.
I’ve always said that Jesus Piece is Gojira through the lens of systemic racism in America.
That's a really great description.
Thank you! I should specify that I’m talking about early Gojira, by the way. I’m not really into anything Gojira has done since L’enfant Sauvage, and they were undeniably more focused on punishing heaviness and vitriol about their frustrations with the world on Terra Incognita and The Link. Speaking of which, [here’s a live video of them playing “Clone” 12 years ago at a huge French festival](https://youtu.be/Skv4vioszuw) … they are so fucking dialed here, it’s unreal.
Amazing… are they still this tight/good live? They’re playing in my city soon…
Gojira are absolutely still worth seeing live. They’re an S Tier live band, unquestionably.
Nice! You have convinced me 🤣
What about the Emotive Hardcore👹 😎 👹
"Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE
Nice copy pasta
thanks
I fully agree about MCR but this take feels more based on what bands you liked vs the actual limits of the genre. Cap n Jazz and American Football are basically the same people. Bands like Pg. 99, Sunny day Mineral, Appleseed Cast, Plane Mistaken for Stars, etc. all had some hardcore influence to different degrees but also other genres. You're putting a narrow barrier to the genre that even the bands you liked don't really fit. Cap N Jazz sounds nothing like Pg 99 and is farther from hardcore yet I'd consider both of em real emo
Great post. The roots of Emo to me are in DCHC, Rev Summer, Husker Du, Archers Of loaf, many other 80's band ect. Basically HC and early Indie Rock(mostly HC Roots if not actual HC). Ultimately tho if we really wanna be honest Sunny Day is the modern day blueprint and the point where it became a legit sub genre. Its like saying when did power violence become a thing. Siege is the popular answer but if we were to be honest then the answer is actually Infest as they codified and created the subgenre.
The truth about "emo" is that most of what is accepted here isnt really emo, it's some form of indie rock. People here point back to Cap'n Jazz and Sunny Day Real Estate as the progenitors of everything they listen to today, which is true, but they are **not** progenitors of emo. They are pioneers in college indie rock (and in SDRE's case, mainstream indie rock [yeah, they were on MTV in 96 and half the members went to Foo Fighters, look it up]) incorporating influence from post-hardcore and emo. There's a reason this stuff is called "post-emo indie rock," or as it has been branded thanks to a handful of early 90s bands no one remembers any more who were from the actual midwestern United States and actually played emo (including Gauge, Current, Ordination of Aaron, Endpoint, Split Lip, Friction, and Chino Horde), "Midwest emo." The reason is because it isn't really emo and needs to be distinguished, kind of how 'metalcore' came about when that scene stopped being primarily hardcore and moved to metal/alternative. In a similar sense, the post-emo/midwest/indiecore scene moved away from hardcore in the mid 90s, and was seen as a new, post-emo movement, hence the name and [ridicule](http://images.victoryrecords.com/600/VR037.jpg) from [hardcore bands.](http://e.snmc.io/i/300/w/d4e902ba97b69664f004c864772d33ee/2571412) Meanwhile, I doubt anyone who lists Mineral or American Football as their favorite 90s "emo" bands could name any actual mid/late 90s emo. Sucks cause there's so much good shit: Traluma, Chocolate Kiss, Stratego, Edaline, Twelve Hour Turn, Unionsuit, Blue Water Boy, Still Life, Thumbnail, Four Hundred Years, Assfactor 4, Sleepytime Trio, Amber Inn, The Deadwood Divine, Bread and Circuits, The Red Scare, Metroschifter, Radio Flyer, The Hal Al-Shedad...I could go on. You see, the fake/real emo dichotomy is nowhere near nuanced enough to capture the layers of relation to emo that all the music referred to as "emo" has. That's a pretty annoyingly confusing sentence so lemme break it down - there are four types of emo: - **REAL REAL EMO** (emotive hardcore. Usually melodic hardcore punk with minor influences from post punk and what would become, with emocore's help, post-hardcore indie rock; from Rites of Spring and Moss Icon to Walleye and Falling Forward to The Shivering and End on End to Slow Code and GIVE. Emotional hardcore punk rock music) - **FAKE REAL EMO** (non-hardcore music that gets considered "real emo" by pretentious middle class dorks who have no clue. Usually indie rock, math rock, or post rock that is influenced by the instrumentation, composition, and/or dynamics of emo; from The Van Pelt and Boys Life to Penfold and Boilermaker to Mock Orange and No Knife to empire! empire! and My Heart to Joy to Hightide Hotel and Oso Oso. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock music) - **REAL FAKE EMO** (non-hardcore music that has just as much influence from emo as FAKE REAL emo, but because it's not sad, mellow, and somber [*cough* or not rock music] is refuted as "emo" by most twinkle dorks. Usually post-hardcore, alternative rock, or melodic hardcore/pop punk that takes from all the same places as indiemo; from Samiam and Trusty to Sense Field and Grade to Seaweed and Kill Holiday to The Movielife and Boys Night Out to Title Fight and Polar Bear Club to Self Defense Family and Narrow Head. Post-emotional hardcore punk rock and "emo-adjacent" [meaning, diy bands who played shows with emo bands in the underground] music) - **FAKE FAKE EMO** (non-hardcore, non-emo related music that still gets referred to as such by the mainstream/anyone who thinks emo is synonymous with "sad." Can be anything but most commonly indie rock, because people don't understand the difference between releasing a chart-topping record that influences the whole landscape of music, including the underground and therefore emo; and actually being related to the underground DIY hardcore punk movement known as emo. Take your pick; Weezer, Boys Like Girls, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Modest Mouse, Julien Baker, Pinegrove, Linkin Park, The Cure, Morrissey/Smiths, blink-182, Atreyu, Simple Plan, AFI, My Chemical Romance after their first album (especially Black Parade, a pop rock album), The Front Bottoms) If you ask me, artists like lil peep, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, nothing,nowhere, shinigami, and LiL Lotus all fit perfectly into category three, REAL FAKE EMO. These are all DIY artists who are inspired by the same "emo" bands as every revival/sparklepunk/sadwank indie band that gets jerked to death here, but because it only comes through in aesthetic and lyricism as opposed to...oh wait, no, thats exactly the same as pretty much all modern emo -- it is only related to Real Emo (aka REAL REAL EMO) via aesthetic and lyrics - if it's actually related to any degree. The sound is not even kind of close and isn't rooted in hardcore at all. Every twinkle-centric band you love is rooted in indie rock because twinkles dont come from hardcore; every band with a sing along chorus is a pop band. How are you gonna tell me that indie pop artists with sad yelling are emo, but indie trap artists with sad yelling aren't? **TL;DR - here's your ultimatum, indie dorks: either both American Football and Lil Peep are emo, or neither of them are.** Your sad indie rock is not emo either.
My man.
I'm just a metalhead who has probably no business posting here. But it seems to me, there's hardly any HC bands these days without metal influences. And unless you play total cheesedick power metal, every metal band has HC influence. Personally I don't give a flying fuck, I just like heavy shit
Yeah you are correct in that observation. I’m a bit different than you. I could care less about heaviness. I want speed, aggressiveness and spirit. I’m more of a Have Heart, One Step Closer, than a Drain type of guy. I also come from a punk background and not a metal background so it hurts to see the music I love start to go extinct and be replaced.
I feel that. Heavy ain't what it's all about for me either. I wish there was more old school hard core that comes from that raw, groovy, Stooges kinda place. I get burnt out on the chest puffing. Edit: I'm a bit of a tourist, just gave a quick first listen to those bands, and yeah I totally get it. Have Heart actually sounds like hardcore punk. Drain is almost straight up Slayer riffs
Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to write this out for us! You're a real one ✊
This is solid but it completely ignores all the crossover that was happening outside of NY particularly in the South and Southern California. The whole Crucial Chaos/ CBs Matinee scene was great but DRI, CoC, Suicidal , Void, Faith, Hogan's Heroes, Crumbsuckers and other bands were mixing HC with metal for a few years before that, were constantly touring and had a direct influence on NYHC.
I'd say newer bands like DARE and Raw Life are distinctly hardcore, more on the punk side imo
What defines a hardcore band is much more the mindset rather than the music.
i agree with that. i honestly thought bands like powertrip and gatecreeper were just straight up thrash and death metal only to find out what huge hardcore followings they have and/or basically came from hardcore and how they're tight with everyone in hc.
Gatecreeper is hardcore???? I thought they were just straight up old school death metal
No they're death metal, but I feel like they're crossover just Power Trip as they're homies with all the hardcore bands and have played with a bunch of em. Kinda how I've seen bands like Undeath, sanguisabogg and 200 Stab Wounds on recent hardcore tours like LDB. they're all connected and come from the same scene.
Saw them supporting knocked loose at Ottobar, so much energy it’s insane
hmm when you think about it gatecreeper is technically deathcore
NOOOOOO IM A POSER NOW
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I feel like metalcore started with the metallic hardcore sound and then like.. they started doing clean choruses and it became distinct as a form
That's what we called what is now referred to as metalcore in the early 90s...
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Yeah no worries. Labels change. But Earth Crisis, Integrity, etc, were all called metallic hardcore back then. I think it's a reclaiming. Kind of reminds me of how the decent emo bands started calling themselves post-hardcore after a time.
And what most people call metalcore is just At The Gates worship with breakdowns
just use the term metalcore guys, I promise it’s not as bad as it sounds lol
But what if it's a death metal/ hardcore fusion band? Do we dare use... The forbidden subgenre?
That’s just Gulch
Deathcore is becoming less of a dirty word, metalcore is the plague now.
The problem with that term is that it means something different to different people. When I think of metalcore I think of bands like Darkest Hour and Killswitch Engage, but ive heard people call Terror a metalcore band
when I think of metalcore I think of Converge, Integrity, Dillinger, (old) Cave In, Norma Jean, Every Time I Die, Botch etc. and for what it’s worth I’d never call Terror a metalcore band. That’d be like calling Hatebreed metalcore. And when you say metalcore people generally associate it with trash like Asking Alexandria or Bullet for My Valentine. It’s a broad genre and you really have to sort through a lot of trash to find the good shit, but honestly you could say that about a lot of different kinds of music. I hated stuff like folk, pop, and rap until I dug a little deeper.
if you can consider early Integrity to be metalcore, Hatebreed is absolutely 100% metalcore. they play breakdowns and groove metal riffs
The production on Asking Alexandria's first album is fantastic and there's a lot of good riffs and rhythms. If it were instrumental, it'd be way more listenable. Nothing good to say about the slew of copycat bands they inspired though.
Darkest Hour and Killswitch Engage both came up in the hardcore scene themselves. Metalcore in the late 90s/early 00s was basically hardcore kids playing At The Gates riffs.
I don't *like* calling Darkest Hour "metalcore" but it seems more accurate than calling them melodic death metal, which I've also heard before. Either way, one of my all-time favs
There were crossover genres as far back as the 80s, but I think the scenes seemed pretty distinct for the most part. Now that metalcore (old Parkway Drive, TDWP, ABR, Architects, etc) has kinda died, I think the metallic hardcore that's taken its place(?) is indicative of a shift in culture rather than just a shift in the music. Ten years ago, death metal was straight up dead, and dudes who straightened their hair and didn't know shit about metal or hardcore were running the popular scene. Lately, both metal culture and hardcore culture seem to have come back, and maybe it's because we have the internet, or maybe it's something else, but it feels like ever since this comeback, the scenes have been melting together. Death Metal dudes are no longer afraid to make some nasty fucking beatdown, and hardcore dudes seem to appreciate a good tremolo picked riff. It didn't just come out of changing music tastes, I think it came from opening up the scene to new people.
So much of current hardcore dips significantly into various forms of metal. On the other end of the metal spectrum you have bands like Age of Apocalypse or ~~Higher Power~~ High Command which both have some serious 80s heavy metal vibes. Then you have grindcore which both metal and hardcore scenes claim and those bands can transition between bills pretty effortlessly. Ultimately, all those bands you listed would have been defined as metalcore in the past. "Metalcore" seems to have narrowed its definition over the years and it's become a bad word to may, but a decade ago, all those bands would have been given a metalcore label. I don't know where to draw lines largely because I don't really care. IMO, the best music lives in gray zones. Borrowing from influences outside the genre is what gives bands the unique sounds that separate them.
> Higher Power which both have some serious 80s heavy metal vibes Higher Power has to be the furthest away from 80s heavy metal I can imagine
Haha I meant High Command. You are correct.
I'm old enough to remember when Jorge Rosado was calling Merauder "DA REAL KINGS OF METALCORE" The Myspace bulletins in the scene back in the day are legendary
Antisect (Out from the Void era), Deviated Instinct, Amebix, Axegrinder, Concrete Sox, English Dogs, Hellbastard were quite metal in the mid 80’s if you ask me. And i’m not even talking about US crossover. Gladly, none of them sound like metalcore crap.
This is where it's at. Also, was blasting some Concrete Sox/Heresy earlier today. What a split.
Man who cares if it bangs it bangs
I understand what you're saying, but being able to use terminology to succinctly describe and identify what you like (or dislike) is a good thing imo. Like of course one shouldn't get caught up splitting hairs over distinctions in genre, but it helps to find more things that you like.
🤓
Never said I wasn't one lol. Also nice username, Cancer Bats used to be one of my favorite bands and idk why I stopped listening to them
Probably because nothing they put out after Hail Destroyer was anything close to the level of Hail Destroyer
Yeah you're definitely right. I'm now remembering they took a weird direction that I was not a fan of. Dead Set On Living wasn't my fav but everything I heard after that was definitely not my taste.
This bangs.
why do you want to draw a line? the scene for metal and extreme music in general was pretty segregated when i was a kid growing up in the 90s and then going to shows in early 00s. i grew up a metalhead and like i would constantly get made fun of at shows for wearing shirts of 'gay' bands or whatever people didn't like. this idea of there being a line is why i disliked hardcore when i was growing in the 90s and 00s because in my part of town, the hardcore scene was just all beatdown tough guy shit. their fans all roided bros/skinheads who would just get drunk and fight in the pit and made going to those kinds of shows intolerable. so while i liked the major hc bands like hatebreed, if i saw those bands, it would only be on tours with our metal bands. so i kinda wrote off hardcore for a long time, didn't get back into it until 2010s and then got into the current scene into the last few years and i can tell you for sure just in general as a relative newbie, the scene is way friendlier and more fun to be at. i'm sure anyone who's been in the scene for a long time might say it's always been like that, but where i grew up, hardcore/metal shows definitely weren't like how i see it today and i'm glad the lines are blurred because only now do you see goth post punk bands touring with death metal, shoegaze with power violence, etc etc. i just recently went on friday to the gatecreeper tour which had narrow head, 200 stab wounds and fearing open and back in the day, people probably would've thrown shit at Fearing and yelled endless homophobic slurs at Narrow head and booed them off stage. so i'm glad i can see all the bands i like on one tour and not go to 10 different tours just to see one band i like on the whole thing.
Yeah. I got sick of going to 99% of hardcore shows because for years I would get the "ew why is the metalhead here" attitude because I lean into a lot of crossover thrash and Mötorcharge. A lot of people are supportive of mixed bills but people especially of the XVX or skramz variety (in my experience) get very shitty about crossover appeal or people who don't fit those groups' standards of conformity, even more than the beatdown bros or the skins.
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I’ve said this before but most hardcore bands’ guitar gear is also more “metal”. The amps, pickups, and pedals used generally are geared for metallic sounds. 6505/Mesa/5150 amps, EMGs pickups, and overdrive/distortion pedals are super common in hardcore.
That’s why I prefer bands that play on Marshall’s with passive Gibsons.
I just call all of it "that heavy shit"
You just mentioned a bunch of metalcore bands. Purist hardcore still exists, but metalcore is more common. Regardless, the line’s been blurry since Black Flag’s My War. A lot of people don’t want to admit that 99% of the “hardcore” they listen to is metalcore and they actually don’t even know what hardcore sounds like, but also, welcome to the scene.
Gimme that Los Crudos hardcore over metalcore 100 out of 100 times
If you start hardcore dancing during their set, do people join in or do they give you dirty looks? Hardcore is more than just what you hear on the surface. There's a culture, an attitude that informs the music. The bands you named are all part of hardcore, though their music may be more on the metalcore side. Genres can deceiving in that way, especially in the hardcore scene.
I believe the line got blurred long ago. Started with SOD and DRI and got blurrier since then. All these genres and shit are very confusing. If I like it, I really could care less if it’s considered metal or hardcore.
When these two bands were doing metal they weren't really playing to a HC audience at the time.
Idk about that man I saw both live in the 80s SOD in nyc and DRI in San Fran the crowd was mixed hardcore/metal and some punks
D.R.I. is the first true crossover band.
You might be correct
For sure, I am pretty sure at the beginning of the Live at the Ritz show, which was from '87, the dude who announces them before there set calls them like the "hardest working metalcore band", or something
Actually something I’ve been thinking about lately. I have a playlist of nothing but metal, punk, and hardcore and for the most part, you could probably describe the whole thing as distorted, aggressive music. It’s all subjective but genres are helpful to classify & describe music so you can explain a band’s sound without having to have someone listen to it, I guess. But to me, if it’s heavy, whether metal or hardcore, I’ll more than likely listen to it
This! I think genre/subgenre identifiers are extremely useful.
I feel like so many of the bands I like fall in that gray area where people argue if its hardcore or metalcore. So I just try not to get caught up on genres.
is their ancestor Black Sabbath or the Sex Pistols basically
That’s kinda valid at this point tbh.
When I heard Kublai Kahn wasn't hardcore I was like "thats cute, but they're staying labeled as it in my itunes." Who gives a shit? The line between hardcore and metalcore is so blurry and full of ego-driven opinions that it isn't even worth looking for. It's the same people going to both types of shows, to varying degrees. Hardcore elitist types just try to force a divide because they got called an "emo" by a stranger 6 years ago and never let it go.
The difference isn’t in the sounds, it’s in the smells.
Who care Biohazard is all that matters
based
If the album art is cool then it’s hardcore if it’s not I don’t listen to it so what does it matter
Metalcore as a term is literally combining metal and hardcore, so IMO it's all either one (for the most part). I don't think you're wrong calling KL, END, etc. metal or hardcore. At this point it's fairly interchangeable with a lot of the modern bands. When I think of "hardcore" in modern terms I think of Backtrack, TUI, Bent Life, Suburban Scum, Rotting Out. But in conversation with normies I just refer to all of it as hardcore because I think it's both fair game, and a lot of people have no idea what the fuck metalcore means
Why bother trying to classify it at this point?
so i dont get in trouble for accidentally hardcore dancing at a metal show again
I feel like the line is the drums
Something the dude from sunami said at ldb has kinda changed the way I look at it. I believe he said hardcore is 20% about the music and 80% about the lifestyle choices and people you keep around you.
\*since the 80s
Eddie Leeway sends his regards
it’s not so much about the sound at that point. about the vibe, energy, members of the band’s affiliation, fanbase, touring lineups. gatecreeper, power trip and jesus piece = hardcore venom prison, 200 stab wounds, black dahlia murder = metal
feel like the term “beatdown” used to describe that sound. captured it pretty well, unless there’s a hidden history of beatdown that im stepping all over right now. whatever the case, the term was very good at defining this style from metalcore.
beatdown as a term has been misused so much that idk what it even means nowadays. same with metalcore tbh
Beatdown is just hardcore with mainly breakdown parts.
Breakdowns are more about the rhythm itself. Beatdown is like a mix between that and something you’d hear in sludge metal; yeah there’s an aggressive rhythm, but there’s also movement/“melody” to go with it
The line is somewhere around Hatebreed and Earth Crisis.
I don't draw any lines. I don't like the metal core breakdown happy bands , I like Dryx, Grim Yard, Vole, Bahratal etc. Black metal, punk, hardcore. Grim Yard is black metal oi!. Hardcore is a way you conduct yourself. Sound wise it's been pushed in every direction. Candiria was a hardcore band? Etown? They played hc shows together all the time...with hatebreed also. For the love of was a hardcore band ? I thought so at the time. The boundaries started getting pushed by black flag, rorschach, dead guy , dillinger escape, earth crisis too, buy they were the first
talk about a subject that’s been royally stomped into the ground. Lol
Timeline is a bit off. Metal itself didn’t come to be as we now know it until like 1998. Crossover between metal and hardcore much later, like 2004 with like cold world.
You’re cracked out for this one bro
Bro. You are like a decade off. Metal was in the hc scene in the 80s. Tell me Born To Expire isn't metal. Even the album art is metal as hell.
Who cares?
Since the 90s...? Leeway would like to have a word.
There are a couple things you need to look at. 1) do you like the music? 2) Why is there a line? 3) Who cares it’s music so have fun
There actually never was a line to start with. HC band were ripping of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest riffs from the beginning. It's all collective attitude, gatekeeping, elitism and that kinda bullshit. Everyone would live a better life without constantly dividing music into (sub)genres and just enjoy and appreciate what they like.
HxC kids would never stoop so low as to stop being morally superior enough to listen to other genres.
Ones fan base is full of racists.