Norma Jean's 1st album "Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child" is a ripping dissonant metalcore record, more along the lines of Converge, rather than the melodic metalcore product they're producing these days. Early Jesse Leech Killswitch and BTBAM were very brutal, especially "The Silent Circus". I always joke with my friends that if BTBAM members put on about 50 pounds on their skinny bones and had long residing hairlines they would have been as highly revered and Bolt Thrower or Immolation by the metal community. Lately, I'm really fond of the workman like music of Unearth. Very well down, stipped-down metalcore with no clean vocals, and lots of crunchy guitar. They actually do some nice short and sweet guitar solos.

Overall I find metalcore like most other metal genres, you have the great bands the rank up their with some of the finest in metal. Then you got the boat load of imitators that are signed by record companies to cash in. Unfortunately, the clones ending up defining the genres, because that's what most people hear.

Musically speaking, Unearth's sound appealed to me, well produced, air tight along with those solos you mentioned. I cannot stand the vocals however, they sound forced and just awful. I admittedly haven't listened to them extensively, maybe they're different beyond their most hit youtube video

The vocal...yeah that always seems to be the biggest gripe about metalcore. Unearth hasn't changed much in that department, so if you don't like the hardcore delivery that's completely understandable. A band that's got a singer with some range is Protest the Hero. The singer's an acrobat. Imagine a growling Freddy Mercury.

Oh I absolutely love Protest the Hero, new album is incredible. I usually don't mind harsh vocals. I was speaking about Unearth in particular. Not on metalcore as a whole.

I don't mind harsh vocals in general (Randy Blythe is my favorite because of his incredible range), but I don't like the vocals from Unearth. The music is good but I don't like the vocals. I feel the same way about Machine Head's vocalist (I know their not metalcore). In both cases, the singers have the stereotypical metal sound. Some people like this, but I don't. It's more of a strained growl than a scream, and to me it sounds like they are pooping while singing. It becomes very monotonous to me. Personally, vocals are what I pay attention to the most in the metal I listen to, which is reflected in the bands I listen to. The last three bands I listened to were Opeth, Slipknot, and In Flames, all of which who have singers with incredible talent.

I tend to think of Robert Flynn of Machine Head as being born to sing metal and their is little straining in his voice.

Its strange how you are comparing a strained growl with a scream and then inferring that screaming is better, especially considering that metal is a macho music genre. Remember animals growl and women scream!

I don`t like metalcore but like any other genre it does have some good singers.

Opeth yes, but the Slipnot and In Flames, are no where near the same league. The only vocalist that comes close to the harsh/clean vocals of Mikael Åkerfeldt was Scar Symmetry's former frontman, Christian Älvestam. This style of singing is virtually impossible to pull off and ends up sounding pretty forced and lame and is why I prefer screaming/growling in metalcore. TDEP is another band that I think pulls if off very well.

Could you recommend some Dillinger Escape Plan songs please? I've been meaning to look into them. They seem to be critically acclaimed and have quite a bit of hype around them. So I'm curious as to what they sound like.

Well, normally I'd recommend "Calculating Infinity", which is their hardcore mathcore masterpiece. Their original singer did very little clean singing on it. Nevertheless toward the end of the album on the tunes "4th Grade Dropout", and "Weekend Sex Change" they started to get a wee more melodic. I'd start with those two. After that album, the got a new vocalist who did a lot more clean singing and with him at the helm, all of their albums have gotten slightly more accessible, ie 'Black Bubble Gum" and "Milk Lizard'. TDEP is all good.

I'm not a big metalcore fan, but... Norma Jean being "garbage" while Killswitch Engage and As I Lay Dying are "innovative"? Norma Jean are far better than every band you've listed save for Between The Buried & Me.