Metalcore
Metalcore is a broadly defined[5] fusion genre combining elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk, that originated in the late 1980s.
Metalcore is noted for its use of breakdowns, which are slow, intense passages conducive to moshing, while other defining instrumentation includes heavy and percussive pedal point guitar riffs and double bass drumming.
Vocalists in the genre typically perform screaming; more popular bands often combine this with the use of standard singing, usually during the bridge or chorus of a song.
During the early 2000s, melodic metalcore bands such as Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Bullet for My Valentine and Parkway Drive found mainstream popularity.
Some metalcore bands, such as Botch and Cave In, stylistically lean towards hardcore, while others, such as Killswitch Engage gravitate towards a heavy metal sound.
[11] Many 2000s metalcore bands were heavily influenced by melodic death metal, and extensively incorporated elements of the style into their music.
[12] Malcolm Dome of Revolver wrote that without melodic death metal band At the Gates' 1995 album Slaughter of the Soul, "modern American metalcore (everyone from As I Lay Dying and Killswitch Engage to All That Remains and the Black Dahlia Murder) wouldn't even exist.
"[13] Graham Hartmann of Loudwire wrote "Although metalcore broke in the early 2000s, listening to At the Gates' 1995 album feels like a Nostradamus-esque prediction of how metal would evolve.
[42] Rorschach also pioneered a distinctly dissonant and noise-influence niche into this early metalcore sound, which would go on to define noisecore and mathcore.
Of the album, Revolver writer Elis Enis stated "any self-proclaimed 'metallic hardcore' band of the last 25 years is indebted to Master Killer's steel-toed stomp.
"[53] Along with All Out War, Darkside NYC and Confusion, Merauder were a part of a wave of bands defining a newer, increasingly metallic style of hardcore in New York that had long been one of the epicentres of the genre.
[65] As the decade drew to a close, a wave of metalcore bands began incorporating elements of melodic death metal into their sound.
[71] CMJ writer Anthony Delia also credited Florida's Poison the Well and their first two releases The Opposite of December... A Season of Separation (1999) and Tear from the Red (2002) as "design[ing] the template for most of" the melodic metalcore bands to come.
[73] Blake Butler of Allmusic stated that Converge "put the final sealing blow on their status as a legend in the world of metallic hardcore" with the album, calling it "an experience -- an encyclopedic envelopment of so much at once.
[34][79] Norma Jean's O' God, the Aftermath (2005) was Grammy award nominated for Best Recording Package[80] and the Chariot's Long Live (2010) was listed as one of Kerrang!
[34] In contrast to these bands' dark approach to the genre, Buffalo, New York's Every Time I Die incorporated Southern rock elements and humor,[42] Kerrang!
On the band's 2005 album City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold moved away from metalcore and changed to a traditional heavy metal sound.
[107] Bullet for My Valentine's second album Scream Aim Fire, released in 2008, peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 and sold 360,000 copies in the United States.
[106] Bullet for My Valentine's 2010 album Fever peaked at number 3 on the Billboard 200, selling 71,000 copies in the United States during its first week of release.
[108] As the decade progressed, metalcore became increasingly tied to the social media Myspace, launched in 2003, and the scene subculture that was prominent on the platform.
[119] In 2006 and 2007, a wave of metalcore bands strongly influenced by death metal dubbed deathcore gained moderate popularity.
[123] Their third album A New Era of Corruption sold about 10,600 copies in the United States in its first week of being released and peaked at position number 43 on the Billboard 200 chart.
[146] Hysteria magazine credited the band's long time vocalist Sam Carter with reviving high pitched screamed vocals in metalcore and "influencing an entire generation of acts such as Polaris, In Hearts Wake, Void of Vision, Invent Animate, Imminence...the list goes on", as well as popularising the "blegh" adlib, which subsequently became commonplace in the genre.
Vein.fm,[169] Code Orange, Knocked Loose, Varials, Jesus Piece, Counterparts and Kublai Khan were all notable groups who gained significant success within the genre at the time.
[185] Around the same time, a number of bands gained prominence in the scene that revived the sound of groups from the mid-to-late-2000s, fronted by Static Dress, SeeYouSpaceCowboy, If I Die First and CrazyEightyEight.
[188] By March 2023, the album had received 20 million streams on Spotify, leading to Metal Hammer calling them "the biggest metalcore band in a generation.
"[187] Bring Me the Horizon's Post Human: Survival Horror (2020)[189] and Architects' For Those That Wish to Exist (2021) both also reached number one in the UK album charts.
[190] Several journalists have noted that metalcore earned a "bad rep" after several bands in the genre found commercial success or released albums with polished production values.
[191][192][193] Additionally, many of the genre's more commercially successful acts have abandoned their metalcore roots entirely, such as Asking Alexandria, Of Mice & Men and Bring Me the Horizon.
"[195] Renounced vocalist Daniel Gray stated, "Modern metalcore has been bastardised into garbage [...] we were influenced by bands like Martyr AD, Poison The Well and Turmoil etc.
