MICRO-GENRE 101: 90s Melodic Metalcore
What follows is an excerpt from this January’s Patreon post. If you’re intrigued, I highly recommend subscribing to read the rest!
Last month, I covered the early origins of screamo and traced a line from the earliest rumblings of emocore to You & I, who are (in my opinion) the progenitors of what we now think of as screamo. It was a bit of a shorter entry, so this month I wanted to do a bit of a longer deep-dive on one of my absolute favorite mini-styles of 90s hardcore: melodic metalcore.
A lot of people tend to think of melodic metalcore as a distinctly 2000s phenomenon— the burst of Gothenburg-riff-style bands with radio-ready choruses that erupted in popularity in the wake of Killswitch Engage’s Alive Or Just Breathing, which eventually resulted in bands like Asking Alexandria or the Devil Wears Prada. A lot of those bands are good, or at the very least, not as bad as many people would have had you believe at the time. But the fact is that those bands are playing a very different style from what I would consider melodic metalcore— ie, bands that are more associated with the underground metallic hardcore scene, but pepper in more adventurous song structures and melodic overtures.
What people regarded as melodic metalcore in the 2000s had a bit of a copy-paste song structure: insert In Flames or Dark Tranquility riffs here, insert Linkin Park chorus here, interchange acoustic interlude with breakdown here, etc. 90s melodic metalcore just had a bit more of a creative and out-there vibe, and I wanted to pay tribute to it today, especially since these bands inadvertently laid the groundwork for a lot of the more post-hardcore-flavored bands that would inspire The Wave in the late 00s and early 10s (you can draw a pretty straight line from Modern Life Is War to Defeater, for example, but while many would argue that those bands’ roots lie in the Boston tortured artist scene— American Nightmare, Hope Conspiracy, et al— I believe that the 90s melodic metalcore style makes up the forgotten half of the equation).
There is still some muddled understanding about the beginnings of the metalcore genre in general— some people point to the Bay Area and crossover thrash scenes of the early-mid-80s as the genesis, while others think that the genre drew more from the late 80s NYHC scene in the aftermath of the Cro-Mags’ Age of Quarrel and the advent of slightly slower and heavier bands like Breakdown and Killing Time. The truth is that both of these styles are represented in the DNA of the early metalcore scene, but the question of “Who was the first metalcore band?” is still up for hefty debate.
Two of the strongest contenders for the title are Integrity and Rorschach, both of whom began at the tail-end of the 80s and released some highly-influential, genre-defining records at the beginning of the 90s. Integrity’s early demos are a bit more straightforwardly hardcore, but by the time of 1991’s Those Who Fear Tomorrow, they had found a sweet spot— Dwid Hellion’s vocals, deep and contorted like they had emerged from a furnace, laid atop apocalyptic riffs that drew from equal parts crust, noisy Japanese hardcore, death and thrash metal, and even a bit of early 80s goth and post-punk. Rorschach, who had gotten in on the game a bit earlier with 1990’s Remain Sedate, were defined by Charles Maggio’s deformed, tortured, high-pitched shriek of a vocal approach and woozy, almost avant-garde riffs that were as heavy as they were weird. Integrity’s legend is well-established, while Rorschach would eventually break up and members would merge with some of the members of late 90s New Jersey act No Escape (a phenomenal band in their own right— their split with Turning Point is not to be ignored) to form the enormously influential Deadguy (and later, Kiss It Goodbye).
However, I would like to submit one more band as a contender for the title of First Metalcore Band: Starkweather. Named after infamous spree killer Charles Starkweather, the band was formed in 1989 in Philadelphia and recorded some demos with an already-established sound, meaning that by the time of their 1992 debut Crossbearer, they were playing a fully-formed style of music that would be extremely inspirational throughout the 90s and 2000s by bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge. Angular riffs that were heavy on odd time signatures and disgusting tones, some unique things that Starkweather added to the mix were occasional hints of acoustic guitar, longer and more involved and dynamic song structures, and most importantly, clean vocals courtesy of Rennie Resmisi. Although hardcore had dabbled in clean vocals before, they were usually the domain of bands trying to move away from hardcore to more college-rock-oriented territory (7 Seconds, Die Kreuzen, Government Issue) or as experiments that landed more embarrassingly than Celtic Frost’s Cold Lake (Sheer Terror). Starkweather’s clean vocals were integrated seamlessly into their disconcertingly heavy and disturbing songs, adding an atmosphere of unease while also being just a tinge more accessible.
While hardcore in a macro sense would trend towards the melodic in the early 90s (see the New Age roster, which included the earliest recordings of bands like Lifetime), metalcore’s development would trend towards the heavier and noisier styles as bands like Earth Crisis and Deadguy began to find their footing. One notable thing about 90s melodic metalcore is that it was often just as discordant and skronky as the less-melodic styles, just with more room in their songs for creative melodicism.
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-xoxo, Ellie
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