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.
Nasum was a Swedish grindcore band from Örebro, formed in 1992. The band released four studio albums and developed into "one of that country's premier metal acts". They disbanded after the December 2004 tsunami killed the band's frontman, Mieszko Talarczyk.
Melt-Banana is a Japanese noise rock band that is known for playing extremely fast noise rock and hardcore punk mixed with experimental, electronica and pop-based song structures. Since forming in 1992 the band has released ten albums and toured worldwide extensively.
Calculating Infinity is the debut studio album by American metalcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan. Recorded at Trax East Recording Studio in South River, New Jersey, it was produced by engineer Steve Evetts with the band's guitarist Ben Weinman and drummer Chris Pennie, and released on September 28, 1999, by Relapse Records. The album is the band's only full-length album to feature original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis, who left the band in 2001.
Discharge are an English hardcore punk band formed in 1977 in Stoke-on-Trent, England. The band is known for influencing several sub-genres of extreme music and their songs have been covered by some of the biggest names in heavy metal and other genres. The musical sub-genre of D-beat is named after Discharge and the band's distinctive drumbeat.
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.
Discordance Axis was an American grindcore band from East Brunswick, New Jersey.
Blackened death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal that fuses elements of black metal and death metal.
Hydra Head Records was an independent record label specializing in extreme metal music, founded in New Mexico by Aaron Turner in 1993. It had another imprint, Hydra Head Noise Industries, which specialized in experimental and noise music. Turner announced he was winding the label down in 2012. In 2020, the label removed its catalog from Spotify and returned its album rights back to several artists.
Today Is the Day is an American noise rock and experimental metal band that originally formed in Nashville, Tennessee. The band's diverse sound combines influences from areas such as noise music, avant-garde metal, grindcore, post-hardcore, and alternative rock among other genres. Most of the band's recordings make extensive use of dissonance and sampling, as well as unusual production techniques and psychedelic overtones. Lyrical themes include depression, warfare, violence, altered states of consciousness, and mental disorders.
World Downfall is the debut studio album by American grindcore band Terrorizer, released on November 13, 1989, through Earache Records. It was produced by David Vincent of Morbid Angel, who also performed bass on the album, and engineered by Scott Burns at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida.
Powerviolence is an extremely dissonant and fast subgenre of hardcore punk which is closely related to thrashcore and grindcore. In contrast with grindcore, which is a "crossover" idiom containing musical aspects of heavy metal, powerviolence is just an augmentation of the most challenging qualities of hardcore punk. Like its predecessors, it is usually socio-politically charged and iconoclastic.
Last Days of Humanity is a Dutch goregrind band that was active from 1989 until 2006, and reformed in 2010. Its music is known for its nonstop sound and relentless blast beats, with regards to drummer Marc Palmen.
Jouhou is the second studio album by grindcore band Discordance Axis, originally released on vinyl format in February 1997 through Devour Records in a limited edition of 4000. The 1998 compact disc edition of the album included tracks taken from splits. The album was re-released on CD by Hydra Head Records on January 27, 2004. The song "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" is named after the novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick.
Graf Orlock is an American hardcore punk band formed in 2003 in Los Angeles, California, United States. They are named after Count Orlok from the 1922 film Nosferatu. The band consists of members of the hardcore punk bands Greyskull, Arctic Choke, Dangers and Ghostlimb, and employs audio snippets and script dialogue from action films such as The Terminator, Aliens and RoboCop in all their songs, which has led to the band being jokingly described as "cinema-grind". The band formed after guitarist Jason Schmidt and drummer Alan Hunter along with bassist Sven Calhoun and vocalist Kalvin Kristoff begun releasing EPs and split albums. In 2006, they started the Destination Time trilogy based on a screenplay that Schmidt and Hunter had been working on in university; the second instalment was the 2007 EP Destination Time Tomorrow which was listed at number 16 in Decibel Magazine's top 40 releases of 2007. Their latest album Crimetraveler was released in 2016 through Vitriol Records, a label run by members of the band and also featuring Ghostlimb, Robotosaurus, Owen Hart, Teeth, Dangers, Birds in Row and Totalt Jävla Mörker.
Dave Witte is an American drummer. He is known for his work in numerous extreme metal or hardcore punk bands including Municipal Waste, Melt-Banana, Discordance Axis, Black Army Jacket, Birds of Prey, Burnt by the Sun, and Deny the Cross among others. He has also played as a session drummer for many other acts.
Deny the Cross is an American powerviolence band. Founded in 2013, the group features drummer Dave Witte, vocalist Carlos Ramirez, guitarist Dan Lactose (Spazz), and bassist Ramon Salcido.
Enemy Soil was an American grindcore band from Sterling, Virginia, first formed in 1991. The band played a style of grindcore that was influenced heavily by hardcore punk, and featured many line-up changes throughout its run, with frontman Richard Johnson acting as its core. Because the group initially was unable to find a suitable drummer, earlier Enemy Soil recordings featured a drum machine. The group's music was also politically-motivated early in their career, however later recordings instead featured introspective topics for lyrics.
S.O.B. is a Japanese punk rock band formed in Osaka in 1983. Their original vocalist Yoshitomo "Tottsuan" Suzuki committed suicide in 1995. They are also considered hugely influential on grindcore bands such as Napalm Death and the genre of death metal as well as one of the mainstays of the thrashcore genre. The band have sometimes been described as grindcore, themselves.
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