Thrashcore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2007)
Thrashcore
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins
Early 1980s North America
Typical instruments
Mainstream popularity Underground

Thrashcore (also known as fastcore) is a fast tempo subgenre of hardcore punk that emerged in the early 1980s. Thrashcore is essentially sped-up hardcore punk, with bands often using blast beats.[citation needed] Songs can be very brief, and thrashcore is in many ways a less dissonant, less metallic forerunner of grindcore. Like hardcore groups, thrashcore lyrics typically emphasize youthful rebellion or antimilitarism. Thrash was in some ways aligned with skateboarder culture.

Thrashcore is often confused with crossover thrash and sometimes thrash metal.[citation needed] Further confusion is added by the fact that many crossover bands, such as D.R.I., began as influential thrashcore bands.[citation needed] Thrashcore is often referred to as simply "thrash"; the "-core" suffix is necessary to distinguish it from the thrash metal scene, which is also referred to as "thrash" by fans[1].

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Early thrashcore

Just as hardcore punk groups distinguished themselves from their punk rock predecessors by their greater intensity and aggression, thrashcore groups (often identified simply as "thrash") sought to play at breakneck tempos that would radicalize the innovations of hardcore. Thrash groups evolved in parallel with, and sometimes borrowed from, developments in British street punk, particularly D-beat. Early American thrashcore groups included the Accüsed (Seattle), Corrosion of Conformity (Raleigh, North Carolina), Cryptic Slaughter (Santa Monica), Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.) (Houston), Septic Death (Boise), Siege (Weymouth, Massachusetts), and Suicidal Tendencies (Venice, California). The British Electro Hippies, Dutch Lärm, Italian Raw Power, and Japanese S.O.B. also practiced important examples of the style. Some of Negative Approach's later work was influential on the scene. Bands went in a variety of different directions. Many of these groups felt increasing kinship with American heavy metal, to the degree of melding the two into the crossover thrash style. C.O.C. eventually became a stoner rock group, Siege laid some of the groundwork for grindcore, and Suicidal Tendencies experimented with funkcore.

[edit] Power violence

The power violence scene grew out of thrashcore as an American (Bay Area, California) counterpart to the British grindcore scene, which had emerged from crust punk. Power violence groups saw themselves as distinct from grindcore because of the increasing proximity of grindcore groups to the death metal being performed in Florida, Sweden, and Brazil. Power violence groups wished to avoid the association with heavy metal music and culture that crossover thrash, thrash metal, and grindcore had made. First mentioned by name in the song "Hispanic Small Man Power (H.S.M.P.)" by genre pioneer Man Is the Bastard, its nascent form was pioneered in the late 1980s in the music of hardcore punk bands Infest and No Comment. The microgenre solidified into its most commonly recognized form in the early 1990s. As well as from thrashcore, power violence groups also took inspiration from pre-grind crust punk groups, from some aspects of early youth crew, from '80s noise rock, and eventually from noise music (particularly Japanoise).

Chris Dodge's record label Slap-a-Ham Records was a fixture during the rapid rise and decline of power violence, releasing influential records by the likes of Neanderthal, No Comment, Crossed Out, Infest, as well as his own Spazz. The label's Fiesta Grande was an annual power violence festival held at 924 Gilman from 1992 to 2000. Spazz drummer Max Ward's label 625 Thrashcore also began its own festival, Super Sabado Gigante, in a similar vein. Power violence bands focused on speed, brevity, bizarre timing breakdowns, and constant tempo changes. Songs were often very short; it was not uncommon for some to last less than 30 seconds.

Other thrashcore groups associated with power violence, not all of whom were from California, included Benumb, Black Army Jacket (NYC), Capitalist Casualties, Charles Bronson, Discordance Axis (New Jersey), Dropdead (Providence), Fuck on the Beach (Tokyo), Hellnation (Kentucky), the Locust, and MK-ULTRA (Chicago). The New York groups Born Against and Rorschach, who became crucial influences on mathcore, also played shows with, and took influence from, power violence bands. The doom metal group Burning Witch also played shows with power violence groups and released on Slap-a-Ham.

[edit] Thrashcore revival

The '90s saw a revival of the thrashcore style, as groups that had previously been associated with power violence or grindcore began to explore their debt to this earlier form of extreme rock music. This was sometimes referred to as "bandanna thrash", in reference to the headgear preferred by many of the performers. Prominent '90s thrashcore groups included Code 13, Guyana Punch Line, Los Crudos, Lets Grow, R.A.M.B.O., Vitamin X, Vivisick, Voorhees, and What Happens Next?. These groups sometimes felt a greater association with other elements of '80s hardcore punk, such as straight edge, anarcho-punk, emo, youth crew, or crust punk, than the initial thrash groups did.

[edit] Contemporary thrashcore

Prominent thrashcore groups of the 21st century include Justin Pearson's groups Holy Molar, Some Girls, and Head Wound City, who incorporate elements of noise rock; Limp Wrist, who are associated with queercore; and the Dutch-American group Das Oath.

[edit] Record Labels

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ As Max Ward writes, "625 started in 1993 in order to help out the local Bay Area thrashcore scene." Ward, Max (2000). "About 625". 625 Thrashcore. Retrieved on June 5, 2008.


[edit] References

v • d • e
Hardcore punk
Regional Scenes
Other topics