figure 1Death core has risen from humble underground roots to the forefront of popular music today.
Death core’s controversial vocal technique, technical syncopated drums and heavily distorted guitar have made controversy for itself all over the world. Bands like Chelsea Grin, The Acacia Strain, We Butter The Bread With Butter, Suicide Silence and Whitechapel all have been associated with the genre, but a lot do not claim to be a part of the genre anyway.
Death core is defined by most to have almost demonic sounding vocals, with palm muted monotonous or dissonant guitars, slow punishing unified drums and the kick drum following the guitar pattern. The term used to describe the slow chugging unified section is called a beatdown or breakdown.
It borrows vocal techniques from death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death for its demonic tone. The guitars are often down tuned massively, sometimes such extreme gauge strings allow for a whole octave down to be achieved with the aid of a couple of extra bottom end strings on 7 and 8 string guitars.
The drums vary a lot from band to band. Some bands make use of speed in blast beats and hard-core punk style beats but others simply compliment the guitar patterns with the kick drum and a steady 4/4 riding crash. There is a lot of variation in the death core scene clearly. The structure can be completely progressive and random at times but the most popular bands in any genre make use of verses and choruses.
Production wise, the aim in this genre is normally for pristine quality, max loudness and plenty of bass and treble. Compression is used heavily to keep everything sounding loud and maximised. Reverb isn’t used much apart from sparingly on the snare, toms and vocals. Everything is precisely equalised for max loudness and smoothness. Drum samples and drum emulators are often used also due to their brilliant quality recordings in comparison to real drums. Also stereo recording and panning is used in the overheads and guitars.
Death core is a mixture of Deathmetal and metalcore. It takes Deathmetals vocals, which originate from black, thrash and satanic metal bands and heavily distorted guitar, which seem to stem from original extreme metal bands although distortion has been around far longer. The drums take influence from metalcores beat down heavy style.
Metalcore was being conceived in the 80’s during the hardcore era by bands like Hogan’s Heroes, Earth Crisis and Integrity. This era of metalcore leaned more towards hardcore than metal. It was like a heavier version of Black Flag. It went extremely underground and died down in the 90’s then its second conception, which has influenced modern day metal core bands the most, occurred in and around the year 2000. Bands like Killswitch Engage, Underoath and All That Remains pioneered the sound of metalcore today. During the 80’s DIY hardcore bands like Black Flag and Bad Brains pioneered a heavier version of punk taking influences from metal bands like Black Sabbath and punk bands like The Sex Pistols.
Death metal during the 90’s was extremely underground and shunned for the most part. Apart from Cannibal Corpses appearance on the Jim Carrey film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. This received plenty of controversy and earned plenty of fans at the same time. The band Cannibal Corpse influenced a lot of people to start delving into the extreme creative styles associated with the band and genre. Like growling vocals and blast beat drums. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_beat)
Whilst hardcore was thriving in the underground scene during the 80’s, metal was very commercial and most metal bands were pop orientated. Metal had fans but didn’t gain much respect. Metallica and bands similar, did well to keep their composure as a straight up metal band during the 80’s but its debated that they sold out or commercialised during the 90’s. Incorporating influences of alternative rock and pop. Heavy Metals origins are quite difficult to recognise in terms of musicality, as it is an extremely different type of music compared to its parent genres like psychedelic and heavy rock. It is argued it originated through progressive rock bands like Emerson Lake and Palmer and Yes. Then experimentation with higher distortion levels on guitars and the introduction of the double kick pedal in the 80’s. During the 80’s there were black metal bands from countries such as Scandinavia, Norway and Germany who played a part in the evolution to deathcore. These bands were extremely unpopular but they endured during the 80’s in their home countries, keeping the demonic vocal aspect alive which is very important in the evolution to deathcore. The late 70’s were home to the original punk bands like The Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks and earlier still The Ramones and also progressive rock musicians like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer. Which all can be linked to death core for different reasons. Then psychedelic and rock and roll soloists and super groups like Cream and Jimi Hendrix during the early and mid 70’s showed the possibilities of music for the next generation.
The 60’s is to me the era of one group and the groups they influenced. The Beatles.
There were other bands with large followings but no band in the history of modern popular music has ever massed as much attention and such a large fan base as The Beatles did. They are the most successful pop band ever. Bands like The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan also had a considerable following but never that of The Beatles. Their latest albums were extremely creative in production terms. They made way for years of musical experimentation, which led eventually to the conception of the newest genres of music. Without the experimentation of The Beatles and the following they gained previous to the more psychedelic albums, I doubt music would be so diverse and so interesting. We as musicians/ fans owe a lot to The Beatles.
The 1950’s was all about classic rock and roll artists like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & The Comets. These bands paved the way for popular music. Although music at the time was more of a business than an art form, they made a lot of positive change in America particularly. They stood against racial segregation indirectly by being a mixture of white country and black rhythm and blues music, showing tolerance. Rock artists hit the mainstream and effected the music taste of the generation to come which I think helped with equality between blacks and whites.
I think without those first pioneering bands we wouldn’t have had any of the bands we love today.
Formats:
The formats of music distribution started at vinyl records, which were normally released as singles with B-side tracks in the 40’s and 50’s. Also music videos appeared on television when released and few radio DJ’s began playing rock music in the 50’s. During the late 60’s compact cassettes were being pioneered and in the 70’s debuted as a method of music distribution. Until 1982, when the CD was released and that became the main format. Mini discs came out but never really caught on as mp3 downloads and streaming came out too fast. Mp3 streaming was far easier and cheaper/totally free. CD’s still carried on being the main method of distribution for music as people were never introduced to the mini disc. Also people found it was nice to have a considerable cd case and artwork. Until the iPod’s iTunes and music streaming software like spotify were released. This made CD’s seem a bit silly, seeing as you could have thousands of songs on your computer and phone or iPod, accessible from anywhere in the world. CD’s still are bought and sold as people like to have something physical but the most up to date and easy to use format is streaming and mp3/wav.
