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Heavy Metal Thunder Metalcore

Genres Heavy Metal Metalcore

Metalcore

Hardcore punk’s sincerity welded to metal’s weight, with the breakdown as the payoff. For a lot of people, the first heavy band they loved.

Active years
1992 – present
Origin
USA / UK
Family
Metalcore
Bands here
21

Start here

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

  1. Jane Doe Converge, 2001 The landmark

    The record that made hardcore into art. Kurt Ballou's guitar sounds like sheet metal, Jacob Bannon is audibly falling apart, and the eleven-minute title track that closes it is the most desolate thing in the genre.

    Listen to Jane Doe

  2. Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire Hatebreed, 1997

    The hardcore end, with no melody and no interest in any. Thirty-one minutes and it does not let up.

    Listen to Satisfaction Is the Death of Desire

  3. Horizons Parkway Drive, 2007

    The Australian record that showed the genre could still write a hook after everyone had stopped expecting it to.

    Listen to Horizons

What it sounds like

Built around the breakdown. A metalcore song exists to arrive at the moment where everything drops to half speed and the guitars land on one crushing repeated figure — the part a room full of people has been waiting for. Around that sit fast tremolo-picked sections borrowed from Swedish melodic death metal, hardcore punk's shouted vocals, and usually a clean-sung chorus for contrast. The guitars are downtuned and modern-sounding, the production is loud and compressed. It is more melodic than its parents on both sides and more emotionally direct: hardcore's sincerity survived the transition, which is why this is the first heavy band a great many people loved.

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

Where the name came from

A portmanteau of 'metal' and 'hardcore' (punk), coined to describe bands fusing heavy metal guitar technique with hardcore punk's intensity and ethics. The term took hold through the early-1990s underground hardcore scene, particularly in New England, as bands like Converge and Hatebreed began incorporating metal riffing.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Converge USA
  • Killswitch Engage USA
  • Hatebreed USA
  • Unearth USA
  • Parkway Drive Australia

And 16 more

  • All That Remains USA
  • As I Lay Dying USA
  • Darkest Hour USA
  • Shadows Fall USA
  • August Burns Red USA
  • The Devil Wears Prada USA
  • Architects UK
  • Trivium USA
  • Bullet for My Valentine UK
  • Avenged Sevenfold USA
  • The Amity Affliction Australia
  • I Killed the Prom Queen Australia
  • Northlane Australia
  • Bleed From Within UK
  • Vassline South Korea
  • Valley of Chrome Philippines

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

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.