The Real Myspace Revival: Deathcore's Resurgence in Unlikely Places

Let’s talk about deathcore. Once considered a dirty word that any band branded with fought tooth and nail to evade, it has seen a bit of a resurgence in the 2010s, even forming a cautious alliance with the modern extreme metal crowd. In its simplest form, deathcore is death metal influenced metallic hardcore. Precursors to the genre cropped up in the 1990s like Eighteen Visions, Antagony, and Embodyment, although they were quickly lumped in with early metalcore, which was more welcoming of abrasive sounds before it had fully morphed into a catch-all for breakdown + singing music . They played fast death metal-style riffs mixed with dissonant, panic-chord injected mosh parts, and vocally were less technical than today, instead focusing on intensity. These bands never labeled themselves deathcore per se, although they planted the roots for future iterations. 

With the advent of Myspace, kids in the early 2000s were being exposed to all sorts of niche genres in a way that hadn’t been done before. They heard these “proto-deathcore” bands, but also tons of metalcore, hardcore, post-hardcore, and whatever else was out there shaping their tastes. The distinct Myspace wave of deathcore was a further shift away from hardcore, but you could still draw some sort of timeline to connect them. 

Instrumentally, there was still that blend of tremolo riffing, blast beats, and slam parts, along with faster groove metal influenced breakdowns ripped straight out of metalcore. The vocals were quite varied at first: some bands ripped off their favorite death metal vocalists with gurgling lows and maybe a rare high screech, others stayed on the hardcore yell/shout side of things, some tried their hand at making delightfully bad piggy noises a la slam, and then a few even paired them together like Despised Icon, who had not one but two guys running around on stage making goofy noises with their snapback caps perfectly angled upwards. 

This haphazard combination of so many influences and questionable fashion choices right around the beginning of the “let’s record every single thing we do” age was a perfect storm to guarantee the utmost elitist vitriol. And boy howdy did the stinkiest metal patch vest wearing, greasy hair waving, Metal Archives posting of them all try their darnest to make those kids pay for desecrating their sacred art form of edgy growling music. Why should a bunch of emo kids be allowed to explore extreme metal, is what they told themselves before leaving nasty comments on forums about how deathcore “isn’t real metal” and is just “poser trash” that relies too much on breakdowns and gimmicky vocals. They weren’t always wrong, but what’s so bad about some breakdowns and gimmicky vocals anyway? 

Metalcore faced a similar imaging issue during this time, but somehow managed to skate by with the help of bands like Killswitch Engage, Unearth, and As I Lay Dying (pre-attempted wife murder by way of hitman), who legitimized the genre’s second wave by adding more typical metal features like solos, soaring singing, and less gluttonous breakdowns. Deathcore wasn’t so lucky. It was plagued by an obsession with the most brutal breakdowns and being extra edgy, which made it easy to cast aside by elitists. Obnoxious bass drops, random samples, questionable fashion choices, and an increasing lack of traditional death metal riffs began to take deathcore even further away from its metallic hardcore roots. The genre’s weird embrace of nu metal and djent during the early 2010s only made things worse. As bands started tuning lower than the genre’s staple of B standard/drop A, they took influence from Meshuggah and Korn just as much as they had from traditional death metal. And just like metalcore, as the genre grew, people began to forget what started it. 

Right around deathcore’s dark age, a few bands tried desperately to shake off that horrible stereotype by honing their skills and playing music that was basically technical death metal but with breakdowns. Acts such as Thy Art is Murder moved beyond their edgy myspace days and matured immensely, even arguing with reviewers who tried to label them as deathcore. Their riffs were quite a bit more intricate than their peers, and they would fit in much more with technical death metal save for their soft spot for those precious breakdowns. The Acacia Strain, an act that had been there from the start, was in a bit of a creative slump during this time due to the loss of their longtime creative force and guitarist Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz. Eventually, they managed to grow out of their djent phase and incorporate elements of sludge metal, doom, and grindcore to keep things interesting. Another band was also beginning to carve their unique path in the genre wasteland at this time. Taking equal influence from symphonic black metal and technical death metal, as well as deathcore, New Jersey act Lorna Shore was at the beginning of their meteoric rise.

It took them quite a while. A few missteps, three vocalists, and a real ship of theseus conundrum with not a single original member left, they are now one of the biggest acts in deathcore. When they released “To the Hellfire” and announced new vocalist Will Ramos, Lorna Shore saw a boost only rivaled by scene pioneers like Bring Me the Horizon and Suicide Silence. Their mixture of fast as lightning drums, guitars that weave between melodic wizardry and punishing brutality effortlessly, an insane wall of symphonic parts, and the cherry on top: Will Ramos’s insane vocal variety, lit up the internet like a wildfire. 

We could spend all day wondering how this happened to a technical deathcore band from New Jersey who had been grinding for over a decade. Maybe it was their years of hard work paying off, or Will’s charm and good looks, or just sheer luck thanks to Tiktok, but they have cemented themselves as a genre mainstay. They’ve even been embraced by the mainstream metal crowd, as has a lot of deathcore nowadays. I think it mostly comes down to how technical these bands are. They rely a ton on programmed drums that seem inhuman to play, orchestral tracks that are maybe a little corny but are regardless part of the sound, and vocals so sophisticated that extreme metal guys can’t tell the difference between them and most modern death metal save for the shoehorned in slow breakdowns. But not everyone is happy with this shift.

It sounds cool in theory that a genre plagued by so much misfortune and frankly a bad rap can actually be a viable way for artists to succeed, but there are some out there who wish deathcore could harken back to its dangerous days of VFW hall mosh pit chaos and rawness. These modern bands need fancy live production like backing tracks and vocal layers and light shows to perform in decent-sized venues with barricades where drinks cost fifteen bucks and merch is creeping up to forty for a shirt. Change doesn’t seem to be happening inside the genre, but rather in a separate sphere that is trying to replicate the reckless combining of a bunch of genres with no regard for the tastemakers that have dictated what deathcore sounds like today. Are you even allowed to mix death metal with hardcore in another way? 

By combining blast beats, low tuned slam parts, and wretched guttural vocals with a punk swagger that would’ve been labeled deathcore a couple decades back. Opening for mainstay extreme metal acts like Dying Fetus, Suffocation, Devourment, and The Black Dahlia Murder, yet simultaneously playing coveted hardcore tastemaker festivals; they seem mutually embraced by both scenes. There’s a ton of variety to be found too among these newer hardcore influenced death metal bands: 200 Stab Wounds and Creeping Death wear their ‘90s death metal inspiration with pride, playing melodic solos that would make Kirk Hammett giddy in combination with Cannibal Corpse-esque pummeling rhythms; Gatecreeper and Fuming Mouth take a note from Entombed’s book and complement their hardcore roots with the signature Swedish chainsaw tone that can only be conjured with a Boss HM-2 pedal. Finally, there’s been an abundance of bands like Vomit Forth, Cell, and Gates to Hell that understand exactly what hardcore kids want out of their music: insane mosh parts. They steal from brutal death metal pioneers like devourment and suffocation whilst also not being shy of their grindcore roots, and a healthy sprinkling of 2000s deathcore for good measure. These bands all enjoy a hefty breakdown in tandem with a raucous solo or crushing blastbeat equally with some two step parts, which sounds eerily like the deathcore bands of yesteryear. 

Some bands have even gone so far as to blatantly pay homage to Myspace deathcore’s peak. Instead of being rooted in death metal or hardcore, they’re unapologetically playing deathcore. Bands like Psycho-Frame, Tracheotomy, Thus Spoke Zarathusca, and Girl of Glass are putting their own spin on a sound that hasn’t been very popular in at least a decade. You’ve got technical riffs and sweep picking, but also a good amount of slam-influenced breakdowns and that kind of grimy production that is begging to be illegally ripped in mp3 format and listened to on skullcandy earbuds. Girl of Glass’s new EP even ends with a synth-laden outro that sounds ripped straight from the first Bring Me The Horizon record. I think these sort of “revival” deathcore bands are achieving something cool, but it’s pretty easy to go too far in the rip off direction and be left with nothing original. When your whole sound is just trying to be as similar as possible to older acts, you might lose your identity a bit. Many of the newer bands calling themselves myspace deathcore or old school deathcore or whatever seem to think that high pitched snares and tons of breakdowns are all you need, but I’m of the opinion that good songwriting is just as vital. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to rip off The Acacia Strain or Suicide Silence or Lorna Shore if the end product lacks intention. There’s definitely a clear quality gap between the top few and the rest. 

There is of course one final piece of the puzzle, an elephant in the room, that I haven’t talked about yet. Maybe a pig in the room would be more apt, because I’m of course talking about slam. Never really reaching the moderate success that more conventional death metal bands received in the 90s-2000s, slam cared about sheer brutality rather than crossover appeal. Taking its name from a late 80s crossover thrash band called Uncle Slam, whose song “Weirdo Man” served as the origin of the prototypical slam riff, the genre is basically just palm muted chugs of varying tempos with all sorts of grunting or grumbling or growling or squealing over top. Suffocation arguably brought the slam riff to death metal with their track “Liege of Veracity”, before New York bands like Internal Bleeding helped pioneer a space for slam within Brutal Death Metal. By the 2000s, bands like Disgorge and Devourment took the genre even further. Much like deathcore, slam had a bit of an image issue to elitists. It was seen as dumb, low IQ music made for meatheads to fight each other to. Hey, that sounds a lot like hardcore! Fans wore snapback caps and baggy jorts and basketball jerseys and fought tooth and nail to preserve their tough guy status. Infamous examples like Waking the Cadaver were reduced to memes based on their over the top vocals, despite having some great songwriting underneath it all. There was definitely shared DNA between slam, beatdown hardcore, and deathcore, at least in the early days. Slam is even a mixture between death metal and beatdown hardcore, but DO NOT call it deathcore because it totally isn’t. 

In a lot of ways, slam is the antithesis to modern extreme metal. Lorna Shore cares a lot about the technicality of their music: how catchy their guitar leads are, how pristine the mix sounds, and how difficult it is to replicate their formula without technological trickery. Unless your band is playing to a click and using drum triggers, a backing track, vocal layers, etc, you aren’t going to come anywhere close. They do not play an accessible type of music for new musicians to the genre. Not to mention their breakdowns seem obsessed with either spamming as many notes as humanly possible or slowing down to a snail’s pace with what feels like entire measures between each bass drop impact. How anyone can mosh to that is beyond me. It is music made for theatrics, for you to sit or stand there and take the sheer human musicianship in. Think of technical blackened symphonic deathcore as the bourgeoisie of deathcore. You can sip your champagne and twirl your mustache at the sights before you. Whereas slam is the proletariat. You’ve just gotta have your palm muting and power chords and decent double pedal feet and a buddy willing to make silly noises over top and there you go on your way to playing local shows already. There’s also a real sense of crowd participation. Shows are insanely chaotic, which is a huge appeal to new fans craving that adrenaline rush. 

That’s probably why we’ve seen bands that sound a whole heck of a lot like slam making waves. The genre’s blend of mid-tempo mosh parts makes it infinitely more approachable. Just like the hardcore death metal acts, there’s been a bit of a propulsion thanks to the hardcore scene latching onto their proclivity for mosh parts. A one man internet band called Torture has been playing shows across the US to packed rooms of eager kids. Who would’ve ever thought an anti-imperialist, anti-war on terror themed band could get to this point in under a year? Similarly, PeelingFlesh, an Oklahoma band formed from the ashes of a short lived, albeit controversial deathcore band called Strangled, sold out 1000 cap rooms on their recent headlining tour. They’re joined by fellow slam enjoyers Snuffed on Sight, Corpse Pile, and other regional acts who are also receiving unprecedented growth. 

They’re rejecting unnecessary technicality and placing emphasis on writing for live shows. Aesthetically, they’re reminiscent of 2000s deathcore. Their logos are a mess of strewn about tree branches, webbing, and jagged lines that require a translator to comprehend. Merchandise is filled with impact font song lyrics and gory cartoon drawings. They make ample use of short sample clips from movies, tv shows, and even other songs in their music. Fast riffs give way to slow, brutal breakdowns and then pick up the pace again in an instant. Despite their close roots to the hardcore scene, these bands seem to share a lot of DNA with the Myspace deathcore of yore. Most importantly, they’re making the genre accessible to new fans. Extreme metal might not be the easiest genre to fully understand as a non-fan, but bands like PeelingFlesh combine outside influences from Memphis hip hop in a catchy manner. Their new album, The G Code, is a brief, yet fun endeavor that perfectly introduces outsiders into what this world is about. Humorous sound bites give way to intense grooves, all accompanied by hip hop influence and slam’s trademark pig squeal vocals. 

While numerous Lorna Shore copycats try their hardest to lap up the tiny remnants of success left in their wake, it’s nice to know that people out there are still determined to carve a path that brings us back to where everything started out.