Y'all don't know shit about deathcore

and here's why.

While deathcore today is often lumped as part of the scene stuff that most staunch metalheads would not dare to explore and outright assume its shit for the most part, the initial deathcore wave was actually great shit, believe it or not.

I'm not talking about Suicide Silence or stuff like that, where kids over-chug their guitars to showcase how damn knuckle-dragging and "br00tal" they are nor the wanky, atrocious and obnoxious stuff like Rings of Saturn. No. This is where the trve shit is y'all. This is where bands beat the living shit out of the likes of Pantera or Amon Amarth or any lame ass band that metalheads seem to put them high on the pedestal for some bizarre reason, even though the majority of these deathcore bands I'm gonna show you are much, much better.

Still don't believe me? Listen to these first fam:

Deformity - Murder Within Sin (1999)

Spread The Disease - We Bleed From Many Wounds (1998)

Despised Icon - The Healing Process (2002)

That's old school deathcore for ya, and it is the shit. It's the shit because y'all really wouldn’t consider these as mere poser shit. This is where the good shit reside fams, and me being one of the few purveyors of good music in Metal Amino it's only natural that I decided to make a blog out of it.

Old School Deathcore 101

To put it simply, deathcore is a fusion of death metal and metalcore. Being a broad term it can mean anything from "downtempo" deathcore, melodic deathcore, grindy deathcore, technical deathcore, symphonic deathcore and obviously, old school deathcore. However, let it be clear the use of the term "old school deathcore" is similar to its cousin old school death metal (OSDM), meaning it's a quite broad term too that can include multiple stylistic deviations of the genre.

If one take a harder look, one can see that deathcore isn't a recent fusion as it goes all the way back in the early 1990s.

1992 was most likely the starting year for deathcore. There are three bands that were notable for layering out its initial template. The first one being Cross Fade, with their emphasis on a peculiar, thuggery hardcore groove was noticeable on their '92 technical death metal demo "Ruined". The next one is Lethargy (consisted of soon-to-be members of Mastodon interestingly enough), who were also playing a technical death metal style, but with a much more proto-mathcore derived sound in their demo. Australian band Damaged (now known as Terrorrust) on the other hand were much more notable: their early material is a mixture of death metal, metalcore and NYHC, sounding extremely similar to mid to late '90s deathcore.

Deathcore gained a lot of traction in the mid '90s. Metalcore itself has already flirted with a fair amount of death metal at this point, though there are bands that took this to the limit. During this period militant, vegan straight edge "hardcore" bands went harder and aggressive in their stance and started to embrace death metal in their music, which in the end becoming a major and influential force in deathcore. In the US, bands like Abnegation, End of One, Upheaval and Day of Suffering were some of the notable bands that actually began mixing a considerable amount of death metal influences in their framework.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Belgian H8000 scene -- which is also vegan straight edge -- is an entirely different monster. Congress and Liar pretty much changed the scene's landscape by opting a much technical and hateful sound with low-key death metal influences (with Master being name dropped in a Congress interview once), but it was Solid, Deformity, Legion, Sektor and Striker that started exerting it stronger than their predecessors. Other bands in the continent -- some of which were inspired by the H8000 scene -- such as Reprisal, Jane, Shaft, Ashlar and Crawlspace went to a similar route. The majority of these bands has always stated in interviews that they took notes from death metal, making the deathcore tag much more legitimate.

Damaged – Do Not Spit (1993)

To say Damaged is incredibly influential in deathcore is uncertain since this band is possibly the most obscure when compared to the other ones in this list – it just happens to be that they played the original deathcore style that a lot of bands in the mid-late ‘90s would play. Is this album good? I mean, yeah. Tracking it down might be hard, but it’s an album well worth getting down especially if you’re down on getting into old school deathcore 101.

Lethargy – Lost In This Existence (1993)

Here's a surprise for ya; Mastodon actually helped pioneering deathcore and mathcore/metalcore -- or in their previous incarnation called Lethargy to be more precise. This stuff is spazzy, filled with dissonant and technical-laden riffs that would find old school deathcore and some mathcore bands would later emulate. Assuming you have working ears and know a thing or two about those genres I've mentioned earlier, you really can't deny the resemblance being showed here in this demo. Unfortunately they dropped their DM sound and went straight up mathcore in their debut album, which was released in 1996. Oh, Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher were in this band, if you're curious.

End Of One – The Aftermath (1996)

The holy grail of old school deathcore? Probably. I'm pretty sure some of y'all would know about this peculiar EP assuming you looked up the history of the genre. For the most part this band fused death metal and trad-metalcore quite evenly, you would find metalcore chugs and breakdowns being intertwined tastefully with downtuned, chromatic NYDM-riffing backed by double bass assaults. Unfortunately this is the only release that this project ever made, but nevertheless it was an interesting piece of deathcore history.

Mörser – Two Hours To Doom (1997)

This is absolutely chaotic. What is interesting to note here is that a lot of this stuff in this album is quite unique in a way. To understand how this band sounded like is we have to take a look at Acme. Now, Acme was notorious for their noisy and disso-grindy-sludgy approach on Rorschach (a band that is also unique in metalcore even to this day), and that approach made them extremely influential in European metalcore. Acme's sound was intense, and so are the bands that they influenced. On one hand, you got Stack making Acme-ish powerviolence, Carol fusing themselves with screamo, and Mörser with deathgrind. After Acme disbanded some of the members went and form Mörser. You'll find that this project is a logical, sonic continuation of the former.

Upheaval – Downfall of the Ascendancy of Man (1997)

"Downfall of the Ascendancy of Man" can be considered as an exemplary release for old school deathcore. Murky production, thick and quite inventive riffs and excellent drumming are to be expected. Some of the best highlights from this 20-minute record is the middle chugs in "The Descending Path" as it was undeniably heavy, considering the intense build-up beforehand. The closer "Abhorrent Traditions" featured a noticeable brutal death metal influence (I'm dumb because I can't name names at the top of my head right now) where the drumming are much more dynamic.

Day of Suffering – The Eternal Jihad (1997)

If you haven't noticed the band came up their name from a Morbid Angel song. This wasn't merely a coincidence; they took major influence from the aforementioned band, playing fat and heavy OSDM riffage for any traditional death metal fan to enjoy. An exemplary album for old school deathcore, Day of Suffering managed to balance out their DM/MxC influences, so for those who are still skeptical about this genre then "The Eternal Jihad" is the best place to start.

Jane – A Doorway to Elsewhere (1998)

Interestingly, Jane was quite unlike when it comes to approaching deathcore. Hailing from Germany, their vocal style in this album was extremely similar to the likes of Carol, Forced to Decay and various German emotive hardcore-tinged metalcore bands at the time (which, in turn, they took major ideas from the legendary Acme like I mentioned earlier). These bands tend to use emotional, raw and abrasive and drawn out screams, and Jane more or less did that but with the additional inclusion of gutturals. Their playing style is somewhat similar too in that style in a way, utilizing clean guitars to aid introspective, atmospheric-esque parts á la Acheborn, all the while alternating between heavy ass, mid-tempo stompers. Great band though, might be my favorite as time goes on.

Spread The Disease – We Bleed From Many Wounds (1998)

This band may probably helped bridging the gap between H8000-styled deathcore and the US bands like Embodyment and Despised Icon. They alternated those sinister trems that you can find in Deformity and Sektor alongside with the "bouncy" chugs and breakdowns End Of One was playing. Though that's just me.

Embodyment – Embrace the Eternal (1998)

Oh hey. Embodyment is actually quite well-known here I think considering people would often bring them up when it comes to discussing old school deathcore. Kinda spazzy at times, probably influenced a lot of the later bands I reckon. This is a classic deathcore album.

Beneath the Remains – Quest of the Last Souls (1998)

Solid US deathcore that is often overlooked. If I recall correctly this band came from the scene All Out War and End of One came from, which is interesting. Anyway, this got some mean ass groovy riffs and tastefully used heavy chugs for days, but it was the vocalist that carried this album into mean ass territory. I ain't kidding. He sounded very pissed off about something, which kinda threw me off at first amusingly enough. Whatever it is this album bangs.

Deformity – Murder Within Sin (1999)

"Murder Within Sin" is the epitome of what deathcore bands should strive for, as the band was able to faithfully play a brutal mixture of death metal and metalcore without making it sound tacky in the slightest. The band's musicianship was tight; chromatic riffing and chugs are varied and technical enough to capture the attention of the listener, and not to mention the pummeling drumming managed to drove this album into headcrushing territory. At first glance this might seemed like a brutal death metal album, but when you take a closer look you can find tons of similar licks and riffs that bands like Liar would play.

Reprisal – Boundless Human Stupidity (2000)

Reprisal is basically a death metal version of Arkangel, and that's a great compliment. Both bands were obviously notorious for preaching the righteousness of straight edge (a common practice for a lot of metal-leaning hardcore bands at the time), and both bands were often hailed for making some of most heaviest metalcore sounding records (arguably even heavier than the modern chugcore bands these days tbqh), but I would willing to argue that Reprisal perfected the formula Arkangel was heading for. All of the technical-sounding-and-somewhat-melodic-yet-somehow-brutal-and-mean-ass riffs and licks that you can find in Arkangel and other bands at the time such as (early) Deformity, Reprisal has it and amped up the death metal influence hard. The end result is this cult classic record, filled with tons of fucking riffs that'll stuck in your head.

Structure Of Lies – Abacus (2002)

This is a bit of a unique record. There are some Mörser in this and probably Unruh too (not surprising considering a member from this band was the guitarist for the latter). Expect a lot of non-obnoxious twists and turns when it comes the songwriting here.

The Red Chord – Fused Together In Revolving Doors (2002)

"Fused Together In Revolving Doors" is essentially mathy-grindy deathcore for freaks who couldn't get enough of spazzy stuff since they have attention spans that's comparable to the size of an ant like yours truly. Jokes aside, this stellar album rips hard from start to finish. Often regarded as a classic too, as it should be.

Despised Icon – The Healing Process (2005)

This is kinda pushing it especially in regards on how "old school" this album really is considering this got those dissonant machine gun breakdowns that the likes of Norma Jean and later most MySpacecore bands were worshipping. In other words you can consider this album as a modern take on deathcore without the "scene" thing, I guess. For real though, this album is quite chaotic and full of heavy as fuck riffage that's capable of making people knocking their teeth out at each other. Oh, and those pig squeals man.

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https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Goregaze/old-school-deathcore/

This link will redirect you to a list of old school deathcore bands. A friend of mine originally made it but now it's a collaborative effort between me and another friend. I wasn't able to provide a much deeper insight on deathcore on this blog but that list includes a ton more that you'll probably find surprising thanks to our research ;) Updated regularly whenever we find "new" bands and info.

#OGMetalcore

#KnowYourGenres