Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. Grindcore is considered a more noise-filled style of hardcore punk while using hardcore's trademark characteristics such as heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdriven bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, and vocals which consist of growls, shouts and high-pitched shrieks. Early groups like Napalm Death are credited with laying the groundwork for the style. It is most prevalent today in North America and Europe, with popular contributors such as Brutal Truth and Nasum. Lyrical themes range from a primary focus on social and political concerns, to gory subject matter and black humor.
Assück was an American grindcore band from Saint Petersburg, Florida, active from 1987 to 1998.
Jason Mark Everman is an American musician and soldier who played guitar with Nirvana and Mind Funk, and bass in Soundgarden and OLD. He later served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. As of May 2017, Everman plays the guitar in a military veteran band called Silence & Light.
Brutal Truth was an American grindcore band from New York City, formed by ex-Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, and Stormtroopers of Death bass guitarist Dan Lilker in 1990. The group disbanded in 1999, but reformed in 2006 and continued to release music until 2014.
Scorn is an English electronic music project. The group was formed in the early 1990s as a project of former Napalm Death members Mick Harris and Nic Bullen. Bullen left the group in 1995 and the project continued on until the end of 2011, as an essentially solo project for Harris. Harris restarted the project in 2019.
Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by releasing early grindcore and death metal records between the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Its roster has since diversified into more mainstream guitar music, working with bands such as Rival Sons, the Temperance Movement, Blackberry Smoke, Scarlet Rebels and the White Buffalo. The company also hosted the 'Earache Express' stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2017 and 'The Earache Factory' at Boomtown 2018. The label's logo is a homage to Thrasher magazine, as Pearson was a skateboard culture enthusiast.
Michael John Harris is an English musician from Birmingham. He was the drummer for Napalm Death between 1985 and 1991, and is credited for coining the term "grindcore". After Napalm Death, Harris joined Painkiller with John Zorn and Bill Laswell. Since the mid-1990s, Harris has worked primarily in electronic and ambient music, his main projects being Scorn and Lull. He has also collaborated with musicians including James Plotkin and Extreme Noise Terror. According to AllMusic, Harris's "genre-spanning activities have done much to jar the minds, expectations, and record collections of audiences previously kept aggressively opposed."
Painkiller is an avant-garde jazz and grindcore band that formed in 1991. Later albums incorporated elements of ambient and dub.
Nicholas Bullen is an English musician and a founding member of the grindcore band Napalm Death.
James Plotkin is an American guitarist and producer known for his role in bands such as Khanate and OLD but with an extensive catalogue outside these bands. He has played guitar for Phantomsmasher and Scorn and continues to remix tracks for bands such as KK Null, Nadja, Sunn O))), ISIS, Pelican and Earth. He works in the genres of grindcore, industrial metal, noise music, drone metal, dark ambient, digital hardcore and post-metal.
Alan Dubin is an American vocalist/singer most widely known for his role in drone metal band Khanate. He is noted for his tortured and distinctive vocal approach. Other bands he has been featured in include OLD and current band Gnaw.
Ephel Duath was an Italian avant garde metal/hardcore punk band, formed in 1998 in Padua, Italy. They have had a constantly changing line-up, with guitarist and songwriter Davide Tiso being the only original member. To date, they have released one demo, five studio albums and two remix albums. Their most recent studio album, Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness, was released in 2013.
Seven Churches is the debut studio album by American death metal band Possessed. The album title refers to the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in the Book of Revelation. "The Exorcist" begins with producer Randy Burns' version of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, performed as it was in the 1973 horror film of the same name. Seven Churches is widely regarded as the first death metal album to exist, and About.com named it one of the ten essential albums of the genre. Jeff Becerra and Larry Lalonde were only 16 when the album was recorded.
Phormula is the full-length debut studio album by the Italian band Ephel Duath. Originally released through Code666 label in early 2000, the album was reissued two years later by Earache's sub-label Elitist. Bonus tracks on the reissue were three songs from the 1998 demo Opera and two remixes; this release was re-titled as Rephormula.
Paul Pavlovich is an American artist, graphic designer, and musician. Currently living in St. Petersburg, Florida, he is best known as the first lead singer for the anarchist grindcore band Assück which he co-founded in 1987. In October 2008, IGN Entertainment named Pavlovich one of the '10 Best Death Metal Singers' stating "In terms of the guys doing the deeper or what some fans call "guttural" vocal style, Pavlovich is in an elite class."
Formula is an album by industrial/metal band OLD. It is their last full-length to date, and the group was condensed to a duo, with James Plotkin handling all instruments and Alan Dubin handling all vocals.
Old Lady Drivers is the debut album by the metal band OLD. It was made as a parody of the grindcore acts of the 1980s.
Lo Flux Tube is the second album by the band OLD. It marked a change in style for the band, abandoning their previous grindcore parody in favor of a much more industrial and experimental sound.
The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak is the third full-length album by the band OLD. It continues their melding of harsher industrial and experimental sounds. This is the last album of this loud, atonal style, which the band gives up on their next album, 1995's Formula. The album title is a reference to the Sleestak, the lizard-like antagonists in the 1974 TV series Land of the Lost. The single "Freak Now" was included on the soundtrack to the 1994 film Brainscan, as well as used in the movie. The tracks "A Beginning", "Two of Me ", and "Peri Cynthion" were also used in the film.
Longhena is the third full-length studio album by technical grindcore band Gridlink, released in 2014. It was the band's final release before entering hiatus later that year.
