Earlier this year, our U.S. team decided to put its collective clubfoot down and declare our choices for the 50 best American metal bands from the past decade. One of the rules we used to narrow our list was that these bands had to be metal on a gut level — specifically, they couldn’t have their roots in hardcore. This, of course, resulted in us having to disqualify plenty of talented acts, as well as a lot of teeth gnashing among Internet historians and scene veterans. The next step was clear: publish a list of the 50 best American hardcore bands blowing up the scene right now.
What we perhaps didn’t anticipate was the diversity of music we’d end up debating. For both America and hardcore, the times are changing, with unorthodox opinions and previously-marginalized voices rising to the surface within the scene. And while some bands on this list embody the more traditional crush-kill-destroy sound of bands like Terror and Hatebreed, others take a noticeable left turn when it comes to what hardcore is, or at the very least can be.
Assuming we’re going to have all of hardcore Twitter down our throats the moment we press “publish,” here, in advance of your outrage, were the self-imposed ground rules for our selections:
1. The band must be American.
2. The band must be still actively playing shows, releasing albums. (i.e. bands like Sunstroke and Impalers that have been less active recently were left off)
3. The band’s debut full-length or EP must have come out in 2010 or later. (For those looking for Incendiary or Harm’s Way, this is why they didn’t make the list.)
4. The band may have metal influences, but must be discernibly hardcore or have hardcore punk roots. (Apologies to fantastic artists like Iron Reagan and Enforced — crossover thrash bands that are just a bit too rooted in metal. Vocals and lyrics are considered, too — bands likeCult Leader, Full of Hell, and Varials are great but ultimately crossed the admittedly arbitrary “metal” threshold we’ve set. Likewise, grindcore bands must lean more heavily on punk than metal to be considered.)
5. The band can’t have been listed on our metal list. (Sorry, All Pigs Must Die!)
Now, without further ado… let’s open up this pit. (And don’t forget to check out our Spotify playlist featuring all of the bands included!)