The Batlord

The next installment is about a genre I've only recently become a fan of: metalcore. For lists like thrash and death metal it was relatively easy to throw them together, as I had years of experience with the genres, and they are so popular that even if I did need a reference to help me narrow down ten albums, I have a million and one sources that have reached a loose consensus on what constitutes the best of the best.

Unfortunately with metalcore there is such a stigma attached that many with taste don't give it the time of day to find out if there even is anything anything worth exploring; and the ones that do probably subconsciously ignore it to an extent due to peer pressure. The anti-metalcore hate is so deep in the metal underground that I can't even fault those who scoff at it -- I certainly did for years.

And those with actual opinions on the subject are more often than not "poseurs" who are only aware of As I Lay Dying and Killswitch Engage. So I had to give myself a crash course in metalcore and make some hard judgement calls to even begin to narrow down ten albums, and I'm still not sure if my list is complete, but I'm pretty satisfied with it ATM.

P.S. I'm splitting this entry into two halves, since this is an upcoming battle made up of bands that a lot of people probably aren't familiar with, so I'm gonna put up a couple Youtube vids for each entry.

Metal/Mathcore

First of two bands I've already covered in my metalcore thread. Can't be helped. God these dudes rule. This album is just an anvil heavy monster with grooves and breakdowns -- obviously influenced by Pantera -- that hold up just as much today as they did twenty years ago. This is just a misanthropic hate**** of a record that is the soundtrack to a concussion in the pit. This album fully deserves its spot in this battle, and you better listen to it. Bitch.






One of the first bands to open my eyes to the true awesomeness of metalcore. This is an intense record with a dash of post-hardcore to give some of those riffs a dissonant edge. The vocals are hardcore as **** while still sounding unique and just drill right into your brain. If you want your metallic hardcore to sound metal as **** while still having the heart and soul of a hardcore band then this is the perfect album for you. Also one of the albums that opened my eyes to the fact that thrash and death metal -- even the brutal variety -- can't hold a candle to metalcore in terms of sheer intensity.






I already went on at some length about this band on my metalcore thread, but I'll give them some more love right now, cause they deserve it. They're an experimental mathcore band with all the dissonant, angular riffing that entails. They throw in some odd musical experiments that bring to mind pre-Colors Between the Buried and Me, though without being nearly as self-consciously weird.

Don't be fooled by their experimentalism into thinking that Botch are anything less than brutal metalcore however, as these guys rip as hard as any more straightforward band. There's a reason that all three of their albums are in the top eleven of RYM's top album chart for metalcore. World class world destroyers right here.






This is a new band for me, just like every single one of the bands on this list, but even more so because they very nearly didn't make it on here. Their earlier work is very well respected -- they're a founding metalcore band who are as much godfathers to the genre as Ringworm -- but personally I find them patchy, even on their good albums. They know how to rip when they want to, but they're too close to old school hardcore for me. Worst of all is their singer, whose voice just grates on me -- but who it also must be said is the only constant member of the band, and is therefore probably responsible for anything I do like about them.

Though this is a highly rated album in their discography, I imagine a few of their earlier releases would have been used by actual fans of the band, but upon hearing this mother****er all my issues with Integrity went out the window. (Somewhat) gone is the ultra-primitive sound of their nineties period, and likewise the lo-fi production. This is a clear case of a band being influenced by those they have influenced, as this album has an updated sound that references current (as of '03) levels of brutality, all while putting to shame many of the bands who had been building on the template already laid down by Integrity.

This is just a ****ing monster of an album that unleashes plenty of their familiar traditional hardcore fury and slower metal riffs, but this time around they've mastered the art of the brutal, crushing breakdown. They don't employ it as a crutch like many modern pretenders, and don't rely on rehashed, stuttering grooves-sans-riffs like your average deathcore band, instead incorporating them into their core sound to fill in gaps that long time fans probably don't want to admit were there. Many bands going this route would probably ruin what made them special, but as Integrity were never big on subtlety or complexity, this straight-forward approach loses nothing while bringing their sound to another level of brutality. Likewise, a much heavier and more professional production adds a punch that they only hinted at before.

Had I never given this album a chance on a whim, to give the band one more shot at making the list, they would have been dropped like a bad habit, but this release is one that I won't even consider removing if I need to make room in the future.






However much metal might be in these guys' sound, Ringworm is a hardcore band through and through. This is also easily the grittiest, grimiest, old school hardcoriest release on my list. This album knows no subtlety, no post-hardcore/mathcore flourishes, no modern "improvements" besides an increase in brutality from their start a decade earlier (another OG metalcore band). This is raw, feral metalcore of the ugliest variety. One of those bands that you just know would blow any headliner off the stage if they were the support act.

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