Deathcore: Now Only 99% Worthless Shit

Since Century Media acquired a controlling interest in Metal Inquisition last month, it's been nothing but red tape and hassles (read their press release for more details). For example, I spent the majority of this week in orientation meetings with various stakeholders to exchange information on market research, our capital structure, and so forth. In particular, our two-day summit on developing trends in wiggerish arm movements was eyeopening: I realized I had a shocking lack of information on what Kids These Days call deathcore. After a scolding from our CMO, I did what I do best: learning about things that make me angry and confused, then reporting back to our readers.

Abnegation: arguably the first hardcore band to play legit metal? Either way, all I can think about is licking Dave Steele's sweaty chest, I don't know why!

Sarge, I am already getting confused and angry. WTF is deathcore?
Basically, deathcore is hardcore kids playing death metal (or trying to). The current deathcore poster children include Suicide Silence, Winds of Plague, Job For A Cowboy, and Bring Me The Horizon. I will go into more detail below, but that's deathcore in a nutshell. The term deathcore isn't new. Back in the 90s people called Overcast and Bloodlet deathcore, but that really wasn't accurate. Bloodlet were heavy and dark as fuck, but their drummer/creative director Charlie's favorites were Helmet and Dave Matthews Band; he hated death metal. Back then, hardcore kids who liked Pyrexia as much as they liked Earth Crisis were a rare and elusive breed. For example, when I met Joey from Circle of Dead Children at some fucking horrible hardcore show in Akron, Ohio in 1997 I just about shit myself when I noticed his Hideous Mangleus shirt (if you know Joey, tell him to email me, he should know who I am if you show him this post).

Today, though, it basically goes without saying that all hardcore kids also like legit death metal. Fast forward 10 years or so from when I met Joey and you now have zillions of kids who like hardcore and death metal. Those zillions of kids are in the zillions of bands who make up the current deathcore scene. While there is a seemingly endless supply of deathcore bands, the way I see it they really fit into one of three flavors.

I fully support unreadable band logos as long as they are spiky death metal/grind ones, but I can't back this bullshit. I have no idea who these turds are but I am pretty sure there is no need for me to find out since I have already heard Carnifex and Whitechapel and do not feel like further torturing myself.

Flavor A: Dillinger Escape Plan covering Dissection
The most common flavor of deathcore is this wretched sub-genre. Like many kinds of metal, it's the product of angry nerds who channel their rage and alienation into music, retreating into their bedroom after getting stuffed into their locker at school by jocks. Normally that's what inspires kids to do something cool like start the next Black Flag or Devourment, but in this case the outcome is much less awesome: because these kids are suburban pussies in the "gifted" classes, they choose to show how much they hate their wretched existence by cramming as many notes as possible into a 4-minute song. I know, what the fuck? Worst form of teenage angst ever.

This band is called Here Comes The Kraken. More like "here comes the litany of recycled Gothenburg riffs" amirite?! Zing!

Like riff-salad-style death metal, there is nothing wrong with this stuff per se, there's just absolutely nothing right with it. The kids can all play their balls off, the recordings are surgically precise, and they've clearly studied every note of every At The Gates-inspired band ever (as Metal Sucks pointed out a while ago, they probably listen to Killswitch Engage, not ATG or Dissection themselves). I totally understand being into a particular genre and the conventions that go along with it- I am currently listening to Putrid Pile as I type this- but enough is enough! Hardcore kids have been jocking Swedeath for like 10+ fucking years now. It was dumb and played out then and it gets even more played out with every generation of entry-level moshers who think they are the shit because they can play a gay, major-key metalcore riff that sounds just like every other gay, major-key metalcore riff since "Slaughter of the Soul" came out.

This assbag sings for Bring Me The Horizon. When he is not playing in his Soilwork tribute band, he makes cute faces in front of the camera for his clothing company, Dropdead (even more annoying than the band Dropdead, if you can imagine that).

I was trying to come up with a witty caption to write about Oceano, but then I pressed "play" on the video and promptly fell asleep.

Despite being so repetitive and dull that it makes Benediction sound positively electrifying, this shit is shockingly popular: Suicide Silence went to #32 on Billboard, Winds of Plague made #73 (Brokencyde beat them by making #68 LOL), and Bring Me The Horizon's video above has over 10 million views. Perhaps this is one of the few times where even Sergeant D is confused and angry about the latest developments in youth culture- although as our readers know, I am a big Winds of Plague fan so I'm stoked on that much at least.

Despised Icon incorporate many wigger slam elements into their take on riff-salad-style deathcore, making them my favorites in this category. Between his New Era hat (at a jaunty angle, of course) and the surprisingly legit slamz at :45, this video is very relevant to my interests!

As a teen, I craved blast beats like a tweaker fiending for his next bump. I was so hard up for blasts I would even stoop to listening to the occasional Rot or Anarchus 7"- that's the grindcore equivalent of a junkie shooting up in their dick because all the veins in their arms are collapsed. I never thought blast beats would be popular, and I definitely didn't think they could ever become boring. Clearly I am shitty at predicting the future, because today there are dozens of blast beat-laden deathcore bands who are not only popular, but also boring as fuck: Carnifex, Job For A Cowboy, Annotations Of An Autopsy, and zillions of others. I got so annoyed by these cookie-cutter assfaces I had to listen to some Human Rejection to cleanse my soul.

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The geniuses who call their Christian deathcore "gorship" have this new logo: the REPENTAGRAM! Sadly, I'm not fucking kidding.

Flavor B: Korn covering Broken Hope
Hopefully you read that description and thought to yourself, "Holy fuck, I had never considered the nightmarish possibilities of such a combination and am strongly considering suiciding myself so I never have to." The good news is that you probably already know what to expect: EXTREMELY generic USDM fast parts mixed with open-string bounce parts tailor-made for crabwalking. Seven-string guitars are frequent purchases for the bros in these bands.

If you thought Korn-meets-Broken Hope wasn't enough of a shit sandwich, Impending Doom add a dose of Christianity. Makes me miss the good old days of moshing 4 Jesus with Unashamed, Focal Point and Overcome :(

This stuff is a great example of how things suck when they are "neither here nor there." What I mean is, this doesn't slam like slam metal, mosh like moshcore, or grind like grindcore, it just kinda does a half-assed, watered-down version of all those things. It doesn't even make me mad like the DEP-covering-Dissection stuff does, it's just really dull and hard to even remember hearing. I could definitely imagine it being on the soundtrack to some crappy Playstation combat racing game like Twisted Metal or something, and I would be like "Whoa, what's this song?!" the first time I heard it, then 20 seconds later I would be more like "Oh never mind, it's just some shitty nu-metal band trying to be 'authentic', it sounded good for a second there though."

This band Molotov Solution really couldn't be a better example of shitty nu-metal meets shitty death metal. I can imagine this being real popular with freestyle motocross and BMX kids from Riverside.

If you are interested in this flavor of deathcore for some bizarre reason, Whitechapel are also a good example. I think you would be better off just simultaneously playing Pantera and Kottonmouth Kings MP3s, though.

A typical deathcore band, probably called something like Tales of Destiny, Reversal of Man, or Plague of Winds. They are most likely signing with Sumerian or Victory this fall.

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I Declare Goddess is a DISFIGURING THE GODDESS X I DECLARE WAR collabo, don't sleep on this shit!

Flavor C: Hatebreed playing Hemdale breakdowns
By now you are probably thinking, "This post says deathcore is only 99% worthless shit, but so far it's 100% by my count." I don't blame you, because I saved the best for last! Given my appreciation of wigger slam, moshcore, and goregrind, it should not be surprising that I love this flavor of deathcore. Because they play nothing but one downtuned mosh riff after the next, many of their songs end up sounding like a series of Hemdale's giant, sludgy breakdowns strung together. Sounds pretty fucking rad, right?! It is!

I am WAY into this band Demolisher. They seriously sound like nothing but Hemdale breakdowns with hardcore vocals over them, it's like my dream band come to life. Note the bro in front's ABACABB "Get Fucked" shirt; I want one!

Because they're drawing more from "core" than "death," this flavor of deathcore doesn't fall prey to fetishizing technique like lots of metal bands do. These bands have figured out something that their boring peers have not: nobody gives a fuck how awesome you are at playing guitar if your songs are boring and limper than Richard Simmons' dick at a titty bar.

I have been listening to ABACABB's new album nonstop this week, especially this song. Make sure you check out the breakdown at 1:30 with "GET FUCKED!" gang vocals. You're fuckin moshing!!!

Only fatties, shut-ins and pedos listen to Braindrill and Necrophagist. Awesome dudes like us moshbros just want put on some Air Max 90s, mosh our balls off to some X breakdowns X and bands like Suffokate, Recon, and Liferuiner are more than happy to oblige. I'm pretty stoked that it's 2009 and there are still bands who just want to see people hardcore 2-step and have a good time, not make the cover of Guitar Jizz magazine.

These 15 year olds are brutal as FUCK despite being called Jerome and barely having half a dozen pubes between them (and sweet Himsa shirt, Pettibone is literally old enough to be your dads!). The lyrics have that kind of disjointed, deranged quality that reminds me of Nuclear Death, which is a compliment I don't just hand out every day:
let em bleed
no legs fucking and no eyes to see
let me know when you die
so i can eat these bloody eyes
I , i'll let you know when i move on
to another one of your fucking limbs
i am so stuffed but your bones look yummy
let me finish you at once

More than anything, this flavor just sounds like 90s moshcore if the bands had good production and actually knew how to play their instruments. I could totally imagine Jerome or Demolisher playing with Fall Silent, Gehenna, Unruh, and Enewetak at some 1995 San Diego or Reno hardcore show, for example. It makes me want to put on my camo shorts, All Out War hoodie, and go windmill some kids!

Monsters: Ho-lyyyyyyyyyyyyyy SHIT!

I'm super stoked I discovered these bands because it's like someone made a genre just for me: It combines the best of braindead moshcore with slam/brutal death metal and tops it off with super aggressive, deliberately ignorant lyrics that make you want to punch people in the face. If you would like to learn more, Youtube is full of X deathcore breakdown X videos, but most of them are just full of the same Suicide Silence and Bring Me The Horizon stuff you've heard a million times. I suggest starting with this kid's 8-part "Brutal Deathcore Breakdowns" series and taking it from there!

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I don't get up on my high horse and complain about posers very often, so please indulge me in this post. I know sometimes our readers and I have our differences, but I hope we can at least come together on the fact that Here Comes The Kraken are fucking complete bullshit and Kids These Days are totally fucked for making shit like that popular. I'm done talking, I'm ready for action. Let's make some yo-yo's and start a fucking firestorm to purify the scene.