How Belgium Changed Hardcore and Metal: A Look into H8000

H8000 was a Belgian metallic hardcore scene that was prevalent during the 1990s, a counterpart to the American scene that brought us groups like Earth Crisis. But this style you might not be used to, because these bands took far more influence from Boston hardcore bands like SS Decontrol and Jerry’s Kids, opposed to being solely based in the beatdown hardcore (or “New York hardcore”, despite many bands not being from New York) of bands like Sick of it All, Madball and Killing Time like the groups from America. However, that isn’t to say that style didn’t exist within the scene, as Regression were one proponent of Belgian American-metallic-hardcore, and Congress too cited beatdown bands as influences. The more metal-influenced bands in the scene often call their style “edge metal” and the hardcore-leaning called “edgecore” which was more in reference to their militant vegan straight edge standpoint than the sound of their music. The name of the scene came from how “8000” is the West Flanders area code and the “H” was used to signify the hate that many of the musicians had directed towards them, thus the pronunciation of “hate-thousand”. However, not all of the bands were directly from West Flanders, as a band like Arkangel was heavily associated with the scene, despite in fact being from Brussels.

The band often hailed as being the first band in the scene was Rise Above, which featured guitarist Edward Verhaeghe (who go onto form Nations on Fire, and start multiple record labels including Good Life Recordings, which would release the majority of albums from the scene), and vocalist Hans Verbeke (who would go onto be a member bands like Blindfold, Liar and Spirit of Youth). Rise Above were probably the first vegan straight edge band in hardcore, releasing their debut self-titled EP in 1989, three years prior to Earth Crisis releasing their debut EP. However, Rise Above and multiple of the bands following them only played regular Boston-style hardcore, without delving into any metal influence.

That changed with Wheel of Progress, which merged this style of hardcore with influences from Slayer, Morbid Angel and Master. Guitarist Josh Fury is credited with leading the crossover, thanks to the more metallic riffing style that he used on the band’s 1993 sole EP “It’s Alive”. Members of this band went onto form two of the most prominent bands in the scene: Congress and Liar; who would both take heavily from the sound of Wheel of Progress, developing them in their respective ways. Wheel of Progress was by no means the first metallic hardcore, but its hard to pretend they weren't early, as it was only in 1989 that Integrity solidified the style with their genre-defining EP “Harder They Fall”, despite their ever-present crust-leanings, being followed by the likes of Ringworm, Rorschach and Earth Crisis.

Consisting of Congress guitarist Michael Pintelon, future-Spoil Engine guitarist Steven Sanders, bassist Christopher Wolff, drummer Michael Bolle and vocalist Lookmulle, Deformity is where this article's title really comes into play. Death metal had always been a prominent influence in metallic hardcore and bands such as Lethargy, Mortification and Abnegation had been riding the line between the two for years, but this was the first band to break into the world of what we now know as “deathcore”. And I don't mean that out of nowhere a band appeared that sound like Thy Art is Murder, that didn't happen. This is old school deathcore akin to Despised Icon, the Red Chord or Antagony. Legitimately hardcore-influenced, raw as hell, deathcore whereas most modern deathcore is polished and contains very little influence from hardcore. Just look at the album cover for their 1997 EP “Misanthrope” and tell me you can't see a relation between it and the cover of an album like “the Ills of Modern Man”. In the same year, Sektor released “Human Spots of Rust”, which would go onto influence the development of Canadian deathcore like Spread the Disease and Despised Icon, which would itself eventually morph into the far more death metal influenced style that was popularised by Suicide Silence, Job for a Cowboy and Bring me the Horizon in the mid-to-late-2000s.

In 1998, Brussels band Arkangel, who were considered particularly “controversial” in the scene, due to early on being militantly vegan and straight edge before distancing themselves from both lifestyles later on in their career, released their debut EP “Prayers Upon Deaf Ears”, which amongst its Slayer worship and metallic hardcore fury, incorporated riffs similar those used by seminal melodic death metal group At the Gates. This fusion had only previously been done by Florida group Poison the Well on their debut EP “Distance Only Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”, released earlier on in the same year. However, PTW’s melo-death influence was definitely few and far between, only being heard in certain parts of certain tracks. Thus, saying they created the melo-death influenced style of metalcore that bands like Killswitch Engage, Trivium and All that Remains would later popularise could definitely be seen by some as a bit of a stretch, but if you are one of those people then this record (Prayers Upon Deaf Ears) is next in line. The melo-death influence is very prevalent, as is the metallic hardcore and the thrash, which is exactly what the beginning of the style was based around. The style from this EP would be picked up elsewhere in the world, with American groups like Prayer for Cleansing, Undying and Interecede in addition to German bands like Heaven Shall Burn, Caliban and Maroon continuing the style. Even the Black Dahlia Murder played this style on their first demo “What a Terrible Night to have a Curse”, before heading in the melodic death metal direction that they’re known for. However, the metallic hardcore influence of the genre would wane as time went on, leading to the genre’s morph into the metal subgenre with very little hardcore influence, that it is today.

Many of the musicians from this scene are still active in bands, however are often disassociated with the style of music that they played in the ‘90s, now being more within the doom metal and post-metal spectrum. Josh Fury of Congress, Wheel of Progress and Liar now plays in stoner metal band King Hiss, Jan Vandekerckhove of Liar and Congress plays in death-doom band Tyrant’s Kall, until 2015 Bert Guillemont of Liar and Sektor played in post-metal band Hive Destruction, and Colin Eeckhout and Kristof Mondy of Spineless went onto form post-metal band Amenra. However, members of Liar, Congress and Death Before Disco did form metallic hardcore band Slegehammer with Integrity vocalist Dwid Hellion in 2004, the same year Steven Sanders of Wheel of Progress formed melo-death-influenced metalcore band Spoil Engine, in 2005 Solid and Spirit of Youth members formed Blood Redemption, who sound heavily influenced by Arkangel, and Arkangel themselves remain active until this day, despite not having released anything since 2008.

After over a decade of H8000's influence on metalcore being watered-down to the point of being almost unrecognisable, the mid-to-late-2010s brought a revival of the sound. The metallic hardcore revival had been bubbling for a while at that point with bands like My Ticket Home, Beartooth, Code Orange and Baptists gaining significant success within the scene, however I think I speak for us of all when I say the H8000 revival wasn't something we were expecting. From what I can tell, Seventh Circle (who are actually from West Flanders) kicked it all off with their 2014 self-titled EP, while UK bands like xReptencex and xServitudex (sensing a theme here?) became the largest bands in the style, in addition to New York's Sanction. Florida also seems to possess a bit of a scene, with the likes Forge, Mindfield, xElegyx, as well as more Belgian bands eventually joining Seventh Circle, like Crowsview, Minded Fury and Low Life. Also, Dragged into Sunlight of all bands seems to cite some H8000 bands, namely Arkangel as an influence, however they're obviously not playing the same style as them, but they do seem to take the Belgian route of pushing sonic extremity, oppose to the mentality of fellow-English bands.