Genre story · Hardcore
Thrashcore
Before crossover became a metal story, "thrash" could simply mean hardcore played at breakneck speed.
In 1980s punk circles, thrashcore described bands driving Hardcore tempos and song lengths to extremes. Dutch group Lärm even used "ultra-thrash-core" language in its early releases; in the United States, D.R.I.'s debut compressed dozens of songs into a short running time. Terminology changed across scenes, and thrashcore came to overlap substantially with the term fastcore. It is not automatically a derivative of Thrash metal, despite the shared word.
The punk engine
The defining tools are rapid drumming, clipped punk riffing, economical arrangements and vocals delivered with urgency rather than metal's extended lead-guitar vocabulary. Breaks can occur suddenly, but the focus is usually forward momentum. Some bands later incorporated thrash metal techniques, crossing into another category without rewriting the origins of their earliest recordings.
The important distinction
Crossover thrash fuses hardcore with the riffs and instrumental language of thrash metal. Thrashcore in this earlier sense is predominantly hardcore punk taken to an extreme.
Essential recordings
- 1983D.R.I.Dirty Rotten LPVery short, frantic songs before the band's metal crossover.
- 1986LärmStraight on ViewAn unambiguous document of the ultra-fast European approach.
- 1984SiegeDrop DeadRecorded 1984. The American extremes of tempo that influenced subsequent underground developments.