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Heavy Metal Thunder Mathcore

Genres Heavy Metal Metalcore Mathcore

Mathcore

Metalcore with the rhythm deliberately broken. Chaotic, dissonant and physically hard to follow, which is exactly the appeal.

Active years
1995 – present
Origin
USA
Family
Metalcore
Bands here
13

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

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

  1. We Are the Romans Botch, 1999

    The way in. Same year and roughly the same idea as Dillinger, but the songs hold still long enough to become songs, and "Transitions from Persona to Object" is the best thing anyone in this genre wrote.

    Listen to We Are the Romans

  2. You Fail Me Converge, 2004

    Hardcore rather than maths, and the emotional register the genre usually lacks. Jacob Bannon screams like it costs him something, which after the chaos of the others is a relief.

    Listen to You Fail Me

  3. Calculating Infinity The Dillinger Escape Plan, 1999 The landmark

    The genre's defining record and the last rung, because it is thirty-seven minutes of deliberate disorientation — time signatures that change every bar and riffs written to be impossible to nod along to. Arrive at it.

    Listen to Calculating Infinity

What it sounds like

Rhythm broken deliberately. Mathcore takes metalcore and removes the thing that made it danceable: time signatures change every few bars, riffs land off the beat, and a passage that starts as a groove is pulled apart before it settles. Dissonant chords, stop-start arrangements, screamed vocals with no clean chorus to relieve them. The playing is exact even when it sounds accidental, which is the whole trick. It is physically difficult to follow and that is the appeal — the discomfort is designed, and once your ear adapts the chaos resolves into something startlingly precise. Compared with metalcore it has thrown away the breakdown's payoff on purpose, and compared with technical death metal it is looser, angrier and far less clean.

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

Where the name came from

Borrows the 'math' prefix from 'math rock' — a 1990s post-punk genre noted for irregular, technically demanding time signatures. Applied to metalcore bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan whose rhythmic complexity resembled mathematical calculation more than conventional songwriting.

The bands

Hear these first

  • The Dillinger Escape Plan USA
  • Converge USA
  • Botch USA
  • Daughters USA
  • Coalesce USA

And 8 more

  • Ion Dissonance Canada
  • Burnt by the Sun USA
  • Psyopus USA
  • Frontierer UK
  • The Arusha Accord UK
  • Car Bomb USA
  • Rolo Tomassi UK
  • Norma Jean USA

If you liked this

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