Deathcore Music: The History and Sound of Deathcore

Deathcore is a heavy metal subgenre that merges the hardcore punk energy of metalcore with the challenging instrumental passages and explicit lyrics of death metal. Deathcore is known for its drop tunings, blast beats, guttural vocals, and frequent instrumental breakdowns. Notable deathcore bands include Despised Icon, the Red Chord, Shadow of Intent, Elysia, Impending Doom, Thy Art Is Murder, Lorna Shore, and Oceano.

The deathcore scene encompasses multiple variants that offer unique sonic characteristics, including:

1. 1. Nu deathcore: This style resembles nu metal, thanks to groove-style riffing and occasional rapping by vocalists. Emmure, Suicide Silence, and Brand of Sacrifice produced nu deathcore music, as has Whitechapel in the later part of its career.
2. 2. Technical deathcore: This subgenre showcases virtuosic playing similar to technical death metal. Technical deathcore acts include Beneath the Massacre, Infant Annihilator, and Within the Ruins.
3. 3. Djentcore: Djentcore is deathcore with heavy influence from djent music, known for its technically demanding polyrhythms. Chelsea Grin, Veil of Maya, Born of Osiris, and After the Burial are examples of djentcore groups.
4. 4. MySpace deathcore: This style of deathcore gained traction on the MySpace platform in the 2000s. Groups in this subgenre often resemble melodic death metal bands, replete with challenging guitar riffs and relatively tuneful vocalists. Groups from the MySpace scene include Winds of Plague, Through the Eyes of the Dead, All Shall Perish, and As Blood Runs Black.
5. 5. Brutal deathcore: This genre de-emphasizes melody in favor of guttural, grunted vocals and slow, grinding riffs. Russian act Slaughter to Prevail helped define this subgenre on its first EP Chapters of Misery (2015) and its formal debut album Misery Sermon (2017).

Deathcore music stands out among other forms of heavy metal thanks to the following characteristics:

1. 1. Hardcore punk energy: Borrowing heavily from metalcore, deathcore bands harness the raw intensity of punk rock in their extreme metal music.
2. 2. Death metal instrumental techniques: Deathcore borrows many instrumental techniques from death metal, including rapid-fire double kick drums, detuned guitar riffs, palm muting, and flourishes of virtuosity.
3. 3. Intense, anti-melodic vocals: A prototypical deathcore frontman rarely sings discernable melodies. Most perform in a grunting, guttural style, peppered by screams known as "pig squeals."
4. 4. Blast beats: Blast beats are rapid-fire sixteenth-note patterns that create a sense of unease.
5. 5. Nu metal grooves: Many deathcore groups embrace the steady grooves found in nu metal, pioneered by bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit.
6. 6. Breakdowns: Many deathcore songs feature instrumental breakdowns that cut away from the main groove or song structure and feature single instruments.

Deathcore and death metal, while closely related, are not synonymous genres. Effectively, deathcore combines death metal with the genre of metalcore, fusing heavy metal with hardcore punk. This leads to some key overall differences between death metal and deathcore:

• Sound: Death metal is a type of extreme metal with thrash-style tempos, double-kick drum pedals, frequent tempo and meter changes, and guitar riffs that toggle between palm-muting and acrobatic technical runs. Many deathcore groups feature rapping and bass and drum grooves that recall nu metal.
• Lyrics: Death metal lyrics often deal with violence and Satanism, but they may also include more nuanced themes about politics, philosophy, and science fiction. Prominent death metal bands include Venom, Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Deicide, Suffocation, Bolt Thrower, Possessed, and Morbid Angel. Deathcore vocalists often toggle between shouted guttural singing and loud shrieks known as "pig squeals."
• Hardcore punk: As a hybrid of death metal and metalcore, deathcore music incorporates many death metal tropes, but it also shows heavy influence from the hardcore punk scenes of New York City, London, and southern California.

The deathcore scene features many influential groups within the broader world of heavy metal. Some of these include:

1. 1. All Shall Perish: This Oakland, California-based group released their debut album Hate, Malice, Revenge in 2003. As one of the first deathcore bands, All Shall Perish heavily influenced the genre.
2. 2. Carnifex: Rising from southern California's robust deathcore scene, Carnifex is known for frontman Scott Ian Lewis's bleak lyrics about anger and suicide and for guitarist Cory Arford’s black metal-inspired riffing.
3. 3. Despised Icon: Canadian deathcore sextet Despised Icon gained immediate notice with their first full-length record, Consumed By Your Poison (2002). Of particular note was the blast beat drumming of Alex Pelletier, which helped establish the template for deathcore music.
4. 4. Job for a Cowboy: Job for a Cowboy helped define deathcore with their debut EP Doom (2005), but the group later turned toward technical death metal and progressive metal.
5. 5. Rose Funeral: Rose Funeral showcases influences from melodic death bands, like the Black Dahlia Murder, but it also embraces grinding guitar riffs and nu metal-style grooves.
6. 6. The Red Chord: Hailing from the working-class Boston suburb of Revere, Massachusetts, the Red Chord was a defining deathcore band that delved into grindcore, black metal, and technical death metal.

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