Metalcore

Origin: 1990’s USA

Characteristics: Percussive mosh riffs, emphasis on breakdowns; combination of hardcore punk’s energy and attitude with metal’s distortion and heaviness

Typical Live Hand Gesture: 🖐 or just moshing, or hardcore dancing

What is the appeal?: Cathartic and empowering heaviness

Despite that metal and punk fans would often clash throughout history, metal and hardcore punk have just as much of a history of influencing each other and creating new fusion genres, going back to thrash metal being influenced by hardcore punk’s speed and aggression, and the creation of crossover thrash by bands such as Suicidal Tendencies. In the 1990’s, a handful of bands would combine further elements of metal and hardcore punk to create metalcore, one of the most popular families of metal today. Bands such as Integrity and Earth Crisis created metal-influenced hardcore (later distinguished as metallic hardcore) with heavy mosh-oriented riffs and shouted vocals. Later in the 1990’s, going into the early 2000’s, bands like Converge would take this metallic hardcore approach further, with works such as 2001’s Jane Doe being an absolutely chaotic assault of fury and dissonance. Dissonant riffs would become a staple of metalcore music, along with an emphasis on implosive breakdown passages.

Bands like Integrity and Earth Crisis paved the way for metalcore to come with their brand of aggressive metallic hardcore.
Jane Doe is some of the angriest metalcore/mathcore out there. Note the use of dissonance and the brief, crushing breakdown at the end.
Botch performed a similar style of angry and dissonant mathcore on 1999’s We Are the Romans.
7 Angels 7 Plagues brought a nostalgic, emotional edge to early 2000’s hardcore-leaning metalcore. Members would continue to play emotional metalcore in a more melodic style as Misery Signals.

Melodic Metalcore

Origin: Early/mid 2000’s USA

Characteristics: Utilization of melodic death metal riffs and clean singing as well as percussive metalcore riffs and breakdowns

What is the appeal?: Feelings of nostalgia; cathartic, energetic guitar playing

In the mid-2000’s, a number of metalcore bands took influence from Gothenburg melodic death metal, particularly At The Gates’ 1995 triumph of an album, Slaughter of the Soul. These bands would infuse their take on metalcore with melodic riffs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on an At the Gates or In Flames record, as well as passages of clean singing. This style of melodic metalcore would overshadow nu metal as one of the most popular metal genres of the mid-to-late 2000’s, with bands such as Killswitch Engage and Trivium introducing a new generation of fans to melodic metal.

Killswitch Engage’s music is adorned with heavy, melodic riffs and often a nostalgic energy. “My Curse” was exposed to even more young, new metal fans through 2007’s Guitar Hero III.
Picking off where 7 Angels 7 Plagues left off, Misery Signals’ 2008 album Controller is a definitive melodic metalcore album, with crushing percussive riffs, an enormous production value courtesy of Devin Townsend, energetic breakdowns, and an endearing nostalgic vibe.
Another successful 2000’s melodic metalcore band, Trivium’s music is full of melodic death metal riffs and singalong choruses. It’s been noted how metalcore such as Trivium carried on the spirit of guitar heroism from genres like thrash, introducing young listeners to the glory of the shred guitar solo.

Deathcore

Origin: Mid-2000’s USA

Characteristics: Heavy, breakdown-oriented metalcore with guttural death metal vocals

What is the appeal?: Cathartic and empowering heaviness, especially in breakdowns

As time went on, it was inevitable that metalcore and melodic metalcore would be expanded upon and made even more extreme. Thus was born deathcore, reaching into the abyss of death metal to infuse the most breakdown-laden and percussive style of metalcore yet with death metal elements such as growled vocals. As the years went on, deathcore bands would tune lower and lower, often crossing over with the guitar styles of djent or slam death metal.

Carnifex were one of the earliest successful deathcore bands. Their music is full of crushing breakdowns and guttural vocals.
“Embalming the Masses” is a solid example of late 2000’s deathcore, with heavy, chugging riffs intermixed with tremolo-picked death metal sections and breakdowns.
After the Burial were one of many bands who would infuse breakdown-oriented deathcore with a downtuned, percussive djent guitar style, influenced by bands such as Meshuggah. “ATB” typically use extended range 8-string guitars; you can hear this extended range in the chugging riffs, as well as in the bridge before the final collapse.
Bands like Black Tongue bring deathcore into the territory of slam death metal, with an emphasis on moshable downtuned percussive riffs.

Works Cited

“Metalcore.” Rate Your Music, Sonemic Inc., rateyourmusic.com/genre/Metalcore/.

“Melodic Metalcore.” Rate Your Music, Sonemic Inc., rateyourmusic.com/genre/Melodic+Metalcore/.