A History of Metalcore

12/06/2026

Metalcore is a combination of Metal (which has a billion subgenres) and Hardcore Punk. We mix the riffs, solos, clean singing from metal, with the moshing, politics, chaoes, energy and most important of all - breakdowns - from hardcore.

Pre-Metalcore (1980s–1990s)

A lot of bands considered as "Metalcore" these days draw inspiration heavily from European melodic death metal such as In Flames and At the Gates (early 1990s).

Basically, if you were a heardcore band from Boston in the 80s and 90s, but lowkey you're a bnig fan of trash or doom or death metal, and you wanna chuck some riffs you've written into your band's music. You were a metalcore band.

Late 1990s to early 2000s

Earth Crisis — Firestorm1993Badass tough-guy hardcore with some grooooovy riffs
Converge — Jane Doe2001Chaos - the album..
The Dillinger Escape Plan — Calculating Infinity1999Maths and jazz and whatever the fuck the vocalist is yellin' into that mic
Hatebreed — Satisfaction is the Death of Desire1997Tough-guy vietname war hardcore

Definitely more chaotic, more energetic and lots of punk sonic infleunces. The metal inflences more of the tone, strucutre and lyrical content. Instead of clean singing and or pure death growls, the bands were developing their own screaming/shouting style with callouts.

2000s to 2010s

Within these 10 years the genre blew the FUCK up. Bands that sound nothing likek each other were grouped into the same genre bucket which pissed a lot of people off. There was so much variety in these 10 years I lowkey have to split it into sections.

2000 to 2005

Avenged Sevenfold — Waking the Fallen2003European power metal and hardcore breakdowns + screams
Killswitch Engage — Alive or Just Breathing2002At the gates melodic dealth metal riffs + hardcore breakdowns + screams
As I Lay Dying — Frail Words Collapse2003Thrash metal Killswitch Engage

Sounds like Melodic Death Metal with Hardcore Infleunces.

2005 to 2010

Bigger clean catchy choruses and the rise of the scene subculture widely defined this era. Personally, this is where my influences lie mostly.

Parkway Drive — Horizons2007
August Burns Red — Messengers2007Berkely guitar nerds start a metalcore band
Bullet for My Valentine — The Poison2005Beginning of the emo or scene culture

Then, all the scene kids discovered they could use a laptop to make wub wubs. So, metalcore bands started to have more electornic influences. Electronicore is a term to describe bands that heavily lean into the electronic aspects. Skrillex used to be in an electronicore band called From First to Last. These bands below were really the pioneers of blending metal music, heardcore breakdowns with electronic beep boops.

The Devil Wears Prada — With Roots Above and Brances Below2008Warped Tour staple
Attack Attack! — Someday Came Suddenly2008The start of the Crab
Asking Alexandria — Stand Up and Scream2007OOOOOH MYYYY GOOOOOOOOD
Bring Me The Horizon — Suicide Season2008My personal gateway album

Needless to say. This era was fuckin' peak.

2010s to 2020s

Progressive metal meeds electronic atmosphere. And, mainstream success.

In this Erra (get it?), we get more progressive metal influences for the nerds who started off being scene kids in high school but now graduated an is an IT professional at a tech firm so they start bands like Northlane and Periphery.

Then, you get the kids who weren't super into maths, but started writing choruses and song strucutrers that mirror pop music.

When Bring Me The Horizon released Sempiternal, every band in the scene spent at least one album cycle trying to emulate what they did.

A Day to Remember — What Separates Me from You2010Pop-punk had a baby with metalcore
Bring Me The Horizon — Sempiternal2013Everything that came bbefore this album is Classic Metalcore. Everything that came after is Modern Metalcore (at least according to me).
The Amity Affliction — Let the Ocean Take Me2014Catchiest Choruses every. Fuckin' love this band.
Architects — All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us2016Blueprint for the modern djenty metalcore
Northlane — Singularity2013Shout out to our brothers over in the AUS. Progressive. NASA engineers if they were writing metalcore songs rather than going to space.
Erra — Drift2016What progressive metalcore sounds like

Meshuggah Rhythm + AXE-FX II atmpshere + Drop XXX tuning + Sometimes really catchy arena rock chorus

2020s to Present

So, everyone in the Metalcore scene all collectively got together and said "We can't tell between what defines a song as metalcore and what doesnt, so fuck it we'll just mix everything"

Spiritbox — Eternal Blue2021Atmospheric, djently, emotional, accesible. She's a really good singer.
Bad Omens — The Death of Peace of Mind2022Industrial, pop electronic and metalcore fused together.
Bring Me The HorizonWhatever the fuck they are doing they put every genre in blender and pick them out
Sleep Token — Take Me Back to Eden2023What even are genre boundaries

Then there is what we define as "Revival-core". Which is pretty much any band that is making music in the 2020s that sound like Metalcore pre-Sempiternal.

Knocked Loose — You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To2024Converge level panic+anxiety and agressive as FUCK
Kublai Khan TX — Exhibition of Prowess2024MAGA-core. Sounds like Hatebreed and Earth Crisis but produced modernly.
Boundaries — Death is a Little More2024Early Melodic Metalcore made in 2024.
Dying Wish — Fragments of a Bitter Memory2021MELODIC METALCORE POWERHOUSE - sounds like KSE and AILD with a female frontwoman

Other Notes

Other Influences genuinely fuck with. They're sometimes clumped in with Metalcore labels, but I personally would classify them as so:

Counterparts — Tragedy Will Find Us2015Melodic Hardcore/Metalcore
Underoath — They're Only Chasing Safety2005Post-Hardcore
Emarosa — Relativity2008Post-hardcore
Chiodos — All's Well That Ends Well2005Post-hardcore or Emo

There is so much out there this just scratches the fucking surface.

Nu-metalcore: Thrown, Code Orange, Sworn In

Electronicore: A Skylit Drive, Enter Shikari, I See Stars, Electric Callboy

Deathcore: A whole 'nother rabbit hole. Just know, the scene kids who got sick of the electronic scene stuff and were into death metal and black metal decide to do invent the genre. Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, Born of Osiris, Lorna Shore.