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Heavy Metal Thunder Grindcore

Genres Heavy Metal Speed Metal Thrash Metal Death Metal Grindcore

Grindcore

Songs measured in seconds rather than minutes, played flat out, usually with something political to say.

Active years
1985 – present
Origin
UK (Birmingham) / USA
Family
Death Metal
Bands here
16

Before you press play

Explicit content

Graphic lyrics and artwork are a defining feature of this genre rather than an occasional accident — which of violence, gore or sex depends on the band. Worth knowing before you put it on in a room with other people in it.

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Scum Napalm Death, 1987 The landmark

    Two different line-ups on two sides of one album, recorded a year apart, and between them they invented grindcore. Side A is a hardcore band playing impossibly fast; side B has Bill Steer and Lee Dorrian on it. "You Suffer" lasts 1.3 seconds.

    Listen to Scum

  2. World Downfall Terrorizer, 1989

    Recorded in a few days by members of Napalm Death and Morbid Angel, and it is tighter than either band managed. The genre's best-played record.

    Listen to World Downfall

  3. Harmony Corruption Napalm Death, 1990

    Where grindcore learned to play. Recorded in Florida with a death metal producer, and the songs last whole minutes.

    Listen to Harmony Corruption

  4. Prowler in the Yard Pig Destroyer, 2001

    No bass player, and it does not need one. The most claustrophobic thing on this list.

    Listen to Prowler in the Yard

What it sounds like

Songs that end before you have worked out what happened. Grindcore compresses everything — a track can be twenty seconds long, an album thirty tracks — with blast-beat drumming at the limit of what a human can play, guitars set to a mid-range buzz rather than a low growl, and two vocalists alternating a high shriek and a low bark. There is no melody and no solos. The lyrics are almost always political, and often furiously so, which is the punk half of its parentage showing. Where death metal wants to sound enormous, grindcore wants to sound like an emergency, and its brevity is a deliberate refusal of everything metal had become by 1985.

  • Heaviness 4 out of 5
  • Speed 5 out of 5
  • Aggression 5 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 3 out of 5
  • Melody 1 out of 5

Where the name came from

The term emerged from the Birmingham grindcore scene in the mid-1980s, associated with Napalm Death and the wider UK extreme underground. 'Grind' described the churning, relentless rhythm and physical sensation of the music; 'core' acknowledged its hardcore punk lineage. Repulsion in Flint, Michigan developed a near-identical approach simultaneously. Napalm Death's You Suffer (1987) — at 1.316 seconds — remains the world's shortest recorded song.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Napalm Death UK
  • Terrorizer USA
  • Carcass UK
  • Brutal Truth USA
  • Pig Destroyer USA

And 11 more

  • Repulsion USA
  • Nasum Sweden
  • Discordance Axis USA
  • Assück USA
  • Rotten Sound Finland
  • Damaged Australia
  • Brujeria Mexico
  • Groinchurn South Africa
  • Wormrot Singapore
  • Full of Hell USA
  • Chepang Nepal

What it led to

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.