Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. Like the term "post-punk", the term "post-hardcore" has been applied to a broad constellation of groups. Initially taking inspiration from post-punk and noise rock, post-hardcore began in the 1980s with bands like Hüsker Dü and Minutemen. The genre expanded in the 1980s and 1990s with releases by bands from cities which had established hardcore scenes, such as Fugazi from Washington, D.C. as well as groups such as Big Black, Jawbox, Quicksand, and Shellac who stuck closer to post-hardcore's noise rock roots. Dischord Records became a major nexus of post-hardcore during this period.
The genre also began to incorporate more dense, complex, and atmospheric instrumentals with bands like Slint and Unwound, and also experienced some crossover from indie rock with bands like The Dismemberment Plan. In the early- and mid-2000s, achieved mainstream success with the popularity of bands like At the Drive-In, My Chemical Romance, Dance Gavin Dance, AFI, Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, the Used, Saosin, Alexisonfire, and Senses Fail. In the 2010s, bands like Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil achieved mainstream success under the post-hardcore label. Meanwhile, bands like Title Fight and La Dispute experienced underground popularity playing music that bore a closer resemblance to the post-hardcore bands of the 1980s and 1990s.
British post-punk of the late 1970s and early 1980s has been seen as influential on the musical development of post-hardcore bands. As the genre progressed, some of these groups also experimented with a wide array of influences, including soul music, dub music, funk, jazz, and dance-punk. It has also been noted that since some post-hardcore bands included members that were rooted in the beginnings of hardcore punk, some of them were able to expand their sound as they became more skilled musicians. During the early 2000s it became common for mainstream "melodic" post-hardcore bands to crossover into other related genres like melodic hardcore, beatdown hardcore, indie rock, screamo, and emo, straddling experimentation and accessibility.
During the early- to mid-1980s, the desire to experiment with hardcore's basic template expanded to many musicians that had been associated with the genre or had strong roots in it. Many of these groups also took inspiration from the 1980s noise rock scene pioneered by Sonic Youth. Some bands signed to the independent label Homestead Records, including Squirrel Bait (as well as David Grubbs-related bands Bastro and Bitch Magnet) and Steve Albini's Big Black (just as his subsequent projects Rapeman and Shellac) are also associated with post-hardcore. Big Black, which also featured former Naked Raygun guitarist Santiago Durango, made themselves known for their strict DIY ethic, related to practices such as paying for their own recordings, booking their own shows, handling their own management and publicity, and remaining "stubbornly independent at a time when many independent bands were eagerly reaching out for the major-label brass ring". The band's music, punctuated by the use of a drum machine, has also been seen as influential to industrial rock, while Blush has also described the Albini-fronted project as "an angst-ridden response to the rigid English post-punk of Gang of Four".Steven Blush. . Feral House: 2001. p. 222. After the issuing of the "Il Duce" single and between the release of their only two full-length studio albums, Big Black left Homestead for Touch and Go Records, which would later reissue not only their entire discography, but would also be responsible for the release of the complete works of Scratch Acid, an act from Austin, Texas described as post-hardcore, that, according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine, "laid the groundwork for much of the distorted, grinding alternative punk rockers of the '90s".
According to Ryan Cooper of About.com and author Doyle Greene, 1980s hardcore punk band Black Flag is one of the pioneers of for the experimental style the band started playing later on in the 1980s.
In 1984, Minneapolis punk band Hüsker Dü released their second studio album, Zen Arcade, considered a key post-hardcore record. Upon its release, the album received positive critical reception from The New York Times and Rolling Stone. Outside the United States, post-hardcore would take shape in the works of the Canadian group Nomeansno, related with Jello Biafra and his independently run label Alternative Tentacles, and that had been active since 1979. The magazine Dusted noted that the group's 1989's release Wrong was "one of the most aggressive and powerful opuses in post-hardcore ever made".
According to Eric Grubbs, a nickname was developed for the new sound, with some considering it "post-harDCore". Another name used for the scene was "emo-core".Grubbs, p. 27 The latter, mentioned in skateboarding magazine Thrasher, would come up in discussions around the D.C. area. While some of these bands have been considered contributors to the birth of emo, with Rites of Spring sometimes being named as the first or one of the earliest emo acts, musicians such as the band's former frontman Guy Picciotto and MacKaye himself have voiced their opposition against the term.Grubbs, p. 27–28
In the nearby state of Maryland, similar bands that are categorized now as post-hardcore would also emerge, these include Moss Icon and The Hated. The former's music contained, according to Steve Huey, "shifting dynamics, chiming guitar arpeggios, and screaming, crying vocal climaxes", which would prove to be influential to later musicians in spite of the band's unstable existence. This group has also been considered one of the earliest emo acts.The second half of the 1980s saw the formation of several bands in D.C., which included Shudder to Think, Jawbox, the Nation of Ulysses, and Fugazi, as well as Baltimore's Lungfish. MacKaye described this period as the busiest that the Dischord Records label had ever seen. Most of these acts, along with earlier ones, would contribute to the 1989 compilation State of the Union, a release that documented the new sound of the late 1980s D.C. punk scene. Fugazi gained "an extremely loyal and numerous global following", with reviewer Andy Kellman summarizing the band's influence with the statement: "To many, Fugazi meant as much to them as Bob Dylan did to their parents." It has also been noted that the group's "ever-evolving" sound would signal a more experimental turn in hardcore that paved the way for later Dischord releases. The band, which included MacKaye, Picciotto, and former Rites of Spring drummer Brendan Canty along with bassist Joe Lally, issued in 1989 13 Songs, a compilation of their earlier self-titled and Margin Walker EPs, which is now considered a landmark album. Similarly, the band's debut studio album, 1990's Repeater, has also been "generally" regarded as a classic. The group also garnered recognition for their activism, cheaply priced shows and CDs, and their resistance to mainstream outlets. On the other hand, Jawbox had been influenced by "the tradition of Chicago's thriving early-'80s scene", while the Nation of Ulysses are "best remembered for lifting the motor-mouthed revolutionary rhetoric of the MC5" with the incorporation of "elements of R&B (as filtered through the MC5) and Avant-garde jazz" combined with "exciting, volatile live gigs", and being the inspiration for "a new crop of bands both locally and abroad".
AllMusic has noted that younger bands "flowered into post-hardcore after cutting their teeth in high school punk bands". In Washington D.C., new bands such as Hoover (as well as the related The Crownhate Ruin), Circus Lupus, Bluetip, and Smart Went Crazy were added to the Dischord roster. Hoover has been cited by journalist Charles Spano as a band that had "a tremendous impact on post-hardcore music". In New York City, in addition to Quicksand, post-hardcore bands such as Helmet, Unsane, Chavez and Texas Is the Reason emerged. Chicago, which alongside the Midwestern United States has been important to the progression of math rock, also saw the birth of post-hardcore acts such as the examples of Shellac, Tar, Trenchmouth, and the Jade Tree-released group Cap'n Jazz (as well as the subsequent related project Joan of Arc, which also released their work through Jade Tree). Steve Huey argues that the release of Cap'n Jazz's retrospective compilation album Analphabetapolothology helped spread the band's influence "far beyond their original audience", while also considering the group as influential for the development of emo in the independent music scene. Champaign, also in Illinois, was known for an independent scene that would give way to groups like Hum, Braid and Poster Children. The American Northwest saw the creation of acts such as Karp, Lync and Unwound, all hailing from the Olympia, Washington area. The latter's music has been considered by critic John Bush to be a combination of "the noise of Sonic Youth's more raucous passages" with a "rare energetic flair which rivals even that of Fugazi". Texas saw the formation of groups such as The Jesus Lizard (later to be based in Chicago) and ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in Austin, and At the Drive-In from El Paso. This last band was known for their energy in both performances and music, and for their "driving melodic punk riffs, meshed together with quieter interlocking note-picking". Kansas City, Missouri bands of the early 90s also contributed significantly to the genre including Season to Risk.
The genre also saw representation outside the United States in Refused who emerged from the Umeå, Sweden music scene. The band, which made itself known earlier in their career for its "massive hardcore sound", released in 1998 The Shape of Punk to Come, an album that saw the group take inspiration from the Nation of Ulysses while incorporating elements such as "Ambient music, jazz breakdowns", metal and electronica to their hardcore sound.
Outside the Gravity roster, another band that played an important role in the development of the "San Diego sound" was Drive Like Jehu. This group, founded by former members of Pitchfork, was known, according to Steve Huey, for their lengthy and multisectioned compositions based on the innovations brought by the releases on Dischord, incorporating elements such as "odd time signatures played an important role on its development in spite of the band's music not resembling the sound such term would later signify. In a similar manner, Swing Kids, composed of former members of hardcore bands from the San Diego scene such as Unbroken, Struggle and Spanakorzo, have been described by journalist Zach Baron as the moment in which the "hardcore" sound of bands like Unbroken effectively became "post-hardcore", known for "covering Joy Division songs" and for its sonic "jazz-quoting" and "guitar feedback" experimentation features. They were also one of the first bands released under the independent label Three One G, founded by the band's vocalist Justin Pearson and later known for releasing the works of several other post-hardcore, noise rock, mathcore and grindcore groups.
Bands like At the Drive-In have acknowledged the influence of the post-hardcore sound coming from the San Diego scene, with vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala citing elements such as "screaming vocals with over-the-top emotions, calculated, heavy riffs, ... offbeat rhythms" and an "incredible amount of energy, chaos and melody" put by these groups as crucial in the development of his band's sound.Grubbs, p. 269
Likewise, out of the Dischord label, Quicksand became the first post-hardcore act to sign a Major Label record deal (with Polydor Records) in 1992. Interscope Records would sign Helmet after a reportedly "ferocious" bidding war between several major record companies, and while MTV would air some videos by the group, which by the time of the release of their major-label debut Meantime, was considered then "the only band close to the Seattle grunge sound" on the American East Coast and would be hailed as "the next big thing", these expectations would "never be fully realized" in spite of the record's later influence. In another notable case, Hum was signed to RCA Records in 1994, selling approximately 250,000 copies of their album You'd Prefer an Astronaut fueled by the success of the album's lead single "Stars", and while the band had established by this point a strong underground fanbase, this would prove to be "the pinnacle of Hum's media attention", as its follow-up, 1998's Downward Is Heavenward would sell poorly, resulting in the decision of RCA to drop the band from their roster.
These bands allowed the genre to grow and become much more varied with At the Drive-In taking influence from art rock and rock and roll, and Glassjaw using elements of both pop music and heavy metal; furthermore, bands such as Hell Is for Heroes, Hundred Reasons, Hondo Maclean and Funeral for a Friend took significant influence from heavy metal bands like Pantera as well as hardcore bands like the Hope Conspiracy. Post-hardcore achieved mainstream success with the success of emo post-hardcore bands such as My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail, Alexisonfire, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Thrice, AFI, the Used, Silverstein, From First To Last, Thursday and Hawthorne Heights. Some bands also began to incorporate progressive elements; with bands such as Chiodos, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Circa Survive, the Fall of Troy and Dance Gavin Dance gaining significant success, and bands such as Damiera, the Sound of Animals Fighting, The Bled, Norma Jean and the Chariot being left under the wood works; as well as bands taking influence from metalcore like Ice Nine Kills, Blessthefall and Pierce the Veil, inspired by acts such as Killswitch Engage, Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu.
Later forms of post-hardcore have garnered more mainstream attention with bands such as Sleeping with Sirens, whose third album Feel (2013) debuted at No. 3 on the US Billboard 200 chart, making it one of the highest charting post-hardcore album by any band to date. – Billboard.com Queens of the Stone Age Heading for First No. 1 Album – Billboard.com Pierce the Veil's third album, Collide with the Sky (2012), has also received much attention. While Madness (2015) and Misadventures (2016)—by Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil respectively—incorporate more elements of pop rock and pop punk, entering territory that many find to be loosely defined as post-hardcore. Seen also is the emergence of independent post-hardcore bands like the Men, Cloud Nothings and METZ, who are moved closer to the dynamics and aesthetics of earlier acts, whilst diverging deeper into external influences. Reviewers have also noted the incorporation of a diversity of elements like krautrock, post-rock, sludge metal, shoegaze, power pop and no wave in addition to previous hardcore punk, noise rock and post-punk sensibilities.
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