The Forgotten Style of Metalcore

You know how the history books portray metalcore as growing out of metallic hardcore in the early-2000s when bands like Killswitch Engage, Trivium and Shadows Fall started bands who were inspired by both metallic hardcore and melodic death metal? Yeah, that never really happened. There's such a massive disconnect from the style of Botch and Hatebreed to that of the aforementioned bands, so... what happened?

In the late '90s, beginning around 1998, there was a much rawer style of melodic death metal-influenced metalcore, that did, in fact, take a significant amount of influence from metallic hardcore, along with that of thrash metal. The most known practitioner of this sound? Poison the Well, who were also one of the first band to play this style. Poison the Well released their début “Distance Only Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” in 1998, and it is very evident that this is different from both metallic hardcore and metalcore, however the elements of both are in there. Poison's style is primarily based in Converge's more aggressive style of metallic hardcore, however heavily incorporate elements from At the Gate's seminal album “Slaughter of the Soul”, which was only released three years prior, along with many tropes typified in thrash metal. It's so much rawer than that of Killswitch Engage but all of the elements are still there.

Wisconsin's Castahead (formerly known as “Caste Ahead”)'s sole solo-release “Better Days”, released the same year, also showcased this style, however with a more prominent thrash metal influence, and along with friends Intercede also playing a very similar style; evident from their début “Without a Tear”.

These two bands even released a split EP together in 1999, before breaking up, causing Intercede's vocalist to join Castahead's guitarists (one becoming bassist) and drummer along with guitarist Ryan Morgan to form 7 Angels 7 Plagues, who's two releases “Until the Day Breathes and the Shadows Flee” and “Jhazmyne's Lullaby” also typify this style, before that band also, after many line-up changes, went their own ways, broke up with their bassist, guitarist and then-touring vocalist helping form Misery Signals. The bassist and guitarist would also later form Burning Empires with now-Fall Out Boy drummer Andrew Hurley, the aforementioned ex-Intercede vocalist and now-Comeback Kid guitarist Stu Ross.

Misery Signals could also be described as playing this style but what they do is a lot more progressive than that of Castahead, Intercede or 7 Angels 7 Plagues. But we could spend an entire article, in itself, talking about the incestuous music scene that these bands took part in.

Belgium's Arkangel released their début “Built Upon the Graves” in 1998, which has even been cited as a massive influence on the emerging deathcore scene along with Dead to Fall's self-titled début in 1999, which leaned more closely to melodic death metal than any of the other bands in this style, but that is so subjective, as almost all of the bands have an almost even mix of the different genres that it's hard to critique, despite Dead to Fall more prominent use of tremolo picking.

Ex-metallic hardcore band Zao, released their third studio album “Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest” in 1998, which embraced melodic death metal influences that were not present in their prior work.

Now I hope I've convinced you of the validity of this other style of metalcore that seems to have now been forgotten, however I would like to note that I, personally, do not believe this to be a separate genre, as much as just a less refined and more raw style of metalcore, when it had a more prominent metallic hardcore influence.