The Hardcore Thread
 

I'm not sure if there's a hardcore/punk crew here at all, but if there are, identify yourselves.

I'm decently into hardcore/punk, recently I've been listening to stuff like:

Hardcore
________

Converge
Walls of Jericho
Outbreak
ALX
Alexisonfire
Comeback Kid

Punk
________

Antiflag
Pennywise
The Ramones
The Clash


Just wondering if anyone here is into this kind of stuff at all?

I have to admit from the Hardcore section the only ones I've heard something from (everything to be precise...) is Alexisonfire.
Probably this is sort of a genre defenition thing...
Where would you put Thrice for example? They're also one of the bands that should not be left unmentioned in a thread like this. Even if their latest album is a strong deviation from what they did before. And yes, I also like that one a lot. ;)
Anyway, Alexisonfire...
Read somewhere around here that they're getting dissed in Canada for being too... well too successful or something... Over here they're pretty much unknown. And I rank them very very highly among my favorite bands.

Thrice isn't hardcore, Thrice would be considered kind of emo over here atleast, I hate to judge bands, that's just the general consensus of people I know. They're kind of right in there with bands like My Chemical Romance in most people opinions. I haven't actually heard a lot of Thrice.

As for Alexisonfire, people think they're too melodic to be hardcore, that's why they're getting dissed. There's too much singing and not enough screaming for most hardcore fans. I like lots of stuff though, so I can appreciate them alot. Their new album is wicked, even if it's not as hardcore as the last two albums, especially the first one, which was the hardest effort by them.

In fact, I'm going to throw in a quick review of their last album

Alexisonfire - Crisis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:O...sis_300RGB.jpg

Track Listing:
1.Drunks, Lovers, Sinners, and Saints
2.This Could Be Anywhere in the World
3.Mailbox Arson
4.Boiled Frogs
5.We are the Sound
6.You Burn First
7.We are the End
8.Crisis
9.Keep It On Wax
10.To A Friend
11.Rough Hands

Track one was a very different style from their previous efforts, featuring Wade(bass player) on lead vocals. It was a very solid opening track and really got you into the feel of the album early on. It featured some very punkish guitar-riffs and had a very in your face feeling.

There was a great lead-in to track two, which is the first single from the album. This song had a very dark feeling, and with the even distribution of George's screaming and Dallas' singing, it brought out a lot of emotions. The chorus, with the lyrics "The city is haunted by ghost from broken homes" added to the very dark, and for lack of a better word haunted feeling to the song. Again, the guitar and drumming was very tight on this song, with a very nice crescendoing drum intro.

Track three was maybe my favourite track on the album. A song about revenge on a town, "Mailbox Arson" is a very caustic song, which really communicates a lot of anger, hatred, and frustration. Georges vocals really brought out the raw anger and hate, while Dallas' were filled with a very kind of lost and frustrated tone, adding great dimension(like always) to the song.

The fourth song, "Boiled Frogs", is about George's dad, whose boss tried to cheat away his pension. This song has a very catchy chorus, and had me singing along most of the times I've listened to it since I got the CD. Great guitar, great drum line, this song should be the next single.

"We are the Sound" is an anthem for the hopeless youth of society, and the correlates heavily with the 7th track, "We are the End", the second part of this anthem. This first part is more about frustration and hopelessness, and like most anthems, is about sticking together and speaking out. The guitar, again, has some very punkish tones to it in parts, such as the beginning of the bridge (The "Do you wish to feel complete" part.)

"You Burn First" features the guest vocals of Gared O'Donnell(of Planes Mistaken for Stars, ughh). This is my least favourite song by far on the album, and doesn't really fit with the rest of the tracks. It's a very creepy and hateful track, but is just kind of meandering and forgettable. I hated this song, and always skip it.

"We are the End" is the second part of the anthem that begins with track 5. It's the more angry and vengeful part of the two, talking about the forgotten youth striking back at the world (kind of pretentious, I know, whatev, it's the theme of lots of hardcore/punk). This song was very catchy, and a very good midpoint for the album.

"Crisis" is probably the most hardcore-styled track on the album. It's got a lot of George's screaming, and a kind of meandering guitar line that continues throughout the song. It's ok to listen to from time to time, but it gets a little irritating after a while. The song is about the masive snowstorm of 1977 in the Niagara and New York areas, and the "Crisis" that followed.

"Keep it on Wax" is the second song to feature Wade(the bass player, as stated earlier) on lead vocals, with heavy backing from George and Dallas. A song about a former band member, Jesse Ingelevics, who bad-mouthed the band alot after leaving. It's a song about betrayal, and very angry as such, a very bitter song.

"To A Friend" is about watching a friend go through tough times and feeling like you can't help. It's a sad and frustrated song, with heavy vocals from Dallas, and the chorus as well is solo Dallas. It's a good song for near the end of the album, as it kind of winds down, leading up to...

"Rough Hands" a great song to end the album. Slow and sad, it brings the album to a good close. Very airy guitar and soft drums makes this a great end to a great album.

That was my interpretation of the album... I liked it more than Watch Out, it was more solid. The first album was still great too, but very different style.

Pftt, i'm into hardcore punk and Punk rock, but not the bastardized Hardcore we see today.

Punk/Hardcore Bands i dig:

Minutemen
Husker Du
Meat Puppets
Angry Samoans
Swell Maps
Wire
Circle Jerks
Mission of Burma
Pere Ubu
Sun City Girls
Black Flag/ State of Alert
Naked Raygun
Bad Brains
Minor Threat/Rites of Spring/Fugazi
The Germs

S?ecter: Actually I liked You Burn First. Reminded me somewhat of the old Johnny Cash... Oô
Nice review though. You got all those facts from the band's Myspace site? :D

Iwata, as much as I resent the whole modern is bastardized way of thinking, I must agree that bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat can't be beat - and Husker Du is awesome! I don't think it's fair to right off a modern genre however, sometimes bands can suprise you.

Tellurian, lol, no not myspace, wikipedia, lol. Also, some of that stuff you can just infer from the lyrics.

Anyone here a Dead Kennedys fan?

I just can't tolerate the Breakdown/Down beat found in modern hardcore bands music, it ruins it entirely for me. It defeats the whole purpose of a band and it's genre when there whole image is geared to being tough and on the edge and then mid-song they turn into some sniveling pussy.

It doesn't help either that most members of current HxC bands could get there ass kicked by Thurston Moore and that isn't saying much.

I'm pretty much 100% with Iwata on this one. Hardcore is over.

Though, I do question your inclusion of Sun City Girls in that list. Great band, I just don't think they really fit in there.

Try listening to some B-Town Beatdown, also Hatebreed or Converge or Outbreak... Outbreak's newest album, Failure, doesn't have one wimpy breakdown in the whole album, it's solid!

I can see where you're coming from though, hardcore has been defiled by the whole emo scene, blech, everytime I see a band like Aiden or From First to Last I get ill. Also, at one point in time, Sonny Moore said that From First To Last was the only punk band still around, blech... To believe I bought a FFTL album once, because someone told me they were good and I wanted to check them out, what a waste of money...

Lol, that's a great line, I'm going to start using the euphamism"A Thurston Moore Beating" lol... Also, I'd like to see Thurston Moore take a shot at members of Hatebreed or B-Town Beatdown, just to make a point, lol ;)


Another little aside, some bands dissapoint me in the way they evolve. AFI for instance, they used to be a wicked punk band, now they're not even punk anymore. I can still appreciate their music, as I love lots of genres, but to hear the potential they used to have, and what they sound like now, only throwing like one punk song on a record (Dancing through Sunday on Sing the Sorrow was good, but the only punk song on the album). I wish they had kept going with what they used to sound like, it was awesome, especially songs like Totalimmortal and the like.

I also have a question for people out there, what genre would Dog Fashion Disco fall into, I was curious today...

Eh, I'm not really into hardcore. I've listened to Hatebreed, but they've bored me to tears after a few songs. It was too dull and sounded the same after awhile. Maybe I haven't been listening to the right hardcore bands?

I am a fan of some of the crossover bands aka metalcore such as God Forbid, Unearth, Shadows Fall, Animosity, and some others. However even that subgenre gets old as well with recycled riffs, terrible screaming, boring breakdowns and uninspired songs.

True hardcore isn't like this, is it?


I also don't listen to much of punk, however I appreciate it since it helped give birth to the thrash metal subgenre, and you can certainly hear the influence on earlier punk bands. I liked the little bit I heard from Dead Kennedys and Fugzai. Not a big fan of party punk like the Ramones, I guess more 'extreme' punk is for me, or at least the bands that thrash is derived from.

I've never been a huge Ramones fan either, though I'll listen to it from time to time...

As Old School Punk goes, I listen to:

Dead Kennedys
The Clash
Sex Pistols
Ramones(time to time)
Fugazi

some others too I'm sure, just can't think of them at the time...

I get my fix of hardcore (ish) music from Unearth too. But I don't think I listen to any 100% hardcore bands.

I do like The Ramones, even if some of their songs have just three chords.

I'm not a huge fan of any of the metalcore I've heard, like Unearth and stuff, maybe I just need to be more open minded, maybe I'll give it a second chance...

Double Post:
Wait a second, does Converge count as Metalcore, cause if so, then I like some metalcore, as I love Converge!

I think metalcore is the only genre I dislike as a whole.

Care to expand on that, for example, why you don't like it?

I don't know if I can. Everything about it just reeks of shit to me. I mean, hardcore was already supposed to be a cross between punk and metal. When you cross hardcore with metal again, you just get shitty watered-down metal. I mean, that's almost what it is by definition. Not to mention that at the moment, metalcore is so very set upon by these little scenester kids begging their parents for Avenged Sevenfold tickets. Ugh.

I'm with knkwzrd here. I'm really not into hardcore, or metalcore at all. It feels too simples, and i know that's not necissarily acurrate, but i just feel so incomplete that i normally just turn it off.

The only two hardcore bands i can really listen to are Threat Signal and Arsis (Yeah, that's about as hardcore as i go generally)

As far as punk goes, same as above, but much less so. I usually listen to punk bands that most people here would attack me for like Ghoti Hook, and Threadline.

IF i saw you in person, i would whoop your ass for that Arsis comment. They are nowhere near a hardcore band and saying they are is basically shitting all over them.

More like husker DON'T but yeah i guess black flag and minor threat are ok sometimes.

Also i kind of object to the classifying of Alexis as hardcore ]:

You damn canadians, always throwing Post- onto whatever genre a band from your land is classified in.

When did hardcore start taking credit for Arsis, Helloween? =/

I've never really seen a difference between Arsis and many other bands classified as hardcore out there. Same sorta deal, every song is built to be as intense as possible, i can't understand the lyrics, and most of it sounds the same. I might not have classified Arsis correctly there, but my statement still stands, Arsis, and Threat Signal are about as hardcore as i get.

Then i doubt you've ever listened to any Death or Black metal bands, but that isn't suprising given that your a fdamn dream theater fan.

I would think Arsis was more melodic death than hardcore or metalcore.

I really can't stand punk, so there's a lot of hardcore bands that I don't like. It's really the metalcore that I enjoy, aside from thrash and the occasional death.

It's rhythm oriented, without being pretentious or having super short songs, and there's the occasional technical stuff thrown in. It's harder than what's on the radio, without being so crunchy that it can't be called "casual listening."

That being said, I like the occasional Flogging Molly or pop punk, coming from bands like Pushmonkey or Presidents of the USA.