So here we are now, at last ready to traverse the shadowy wilderness of metalcore, the way mapped for us by our six classics-that-weren’t. We have markers and milestones with names we might recognize, bands we knew of but never explored, and have since vanished into the ether. The way is fraught with one-offs and workhorses; with promising starts and premature ends; with professionals and amateurs; with stalwarts, traditionalists, iconoclasts, and everything in between.
From here on, although we may pause to spend more time with one band or another to locate their place in the metal continuum, we’re in flyover mode. We’ll stay true to the purpose of the American Metalcore Project to shine some well-deserved light on all this overlooked and underappreciated music, but we will also have to temper our ambitions with the reality that some things will slip our notice. Not everything can be gotten to, but maybe it’s up to you to wander off the path when you outgrow these (limited, maybe ill-informed) maps, shine a little of your own light around, and see what you find out there in the dark. But you’d better know where you’re coming from or you’re going to get really lost really fast: It’s generally agreed that metalcore originated during the metallic hardcore/“crossover” period that took place between the waning years of heavy metal’s dominion over the 80s and the dark age of the 90s. Converge, Earth Crisis, Integrity, and Starkweather were the result of the overlap, their early work best imagined as hardcore punk outlines colored in with heavy metal. This template would change over the next decade, but its first evolutionary leap occurred during this five-year span that ostensibly marks the first “wave” of metalcore. These are pre-Jane Doe days in a pre-Alive or Just Breathing age, which means The Big Four of Thrash (Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer) are at or approaching their nadirs with Load/Reload, Risk, The Threat is Real, and Diabolus in Musica. Nu-metal is on the rise with Korn and Limp Bizkit in the vanguard, blazing a trail that hundreds will follow to metal’s lowest era, lasting from now until approximately 2003. Florida and New York’s underground metal scenes are red-hot, spawning dozens of short-lived but widely-respected death metal acts vying for power. Caught between these two subterranean explosions is the metalcore scene, pulling itself together under the flag Pantera waves for mainstream American metal. It has a few years to go before maturity, but in its molten state, metalcore disciplines the rage that fueled the metal of the 80s with the tight song structures of hardcore punk, forging an exciting new force in the American underground. Enough history. Rev your engines. This is lift-off.
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Brian LesmesWherein Brian hilariously overanalyzes a subgenre of metal! Archives
May 2018
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