Bands that changed the way I listen to Hardcore

Everyone has a story about how they got into hardcore, and they’re almost always something along the lines of “I found this band on youtube and it changed my life” or “My friend took me along to a show and I was hooked”... or my personal favourite “I’ve always been into hardcore, I was born with a copy of Master Killer in one hand and Age Of Quarrel in the other”. Whilst these stories may be interesting for those who tell them, for others it may be a chore to listen to.

Instead of telling you about how I got into Hardcore, I’m going to pick five bands that changed how I listened to the genre and further shaped my tastes. I believe that it is much more insightful and much less self indulgent to talk about some bands and records that you’ve loved and has changed your way of listening and being involved in hardcore, as opposed to reeling off a heartfelt story about how you went to a Hardcore show when you was fifteen and moshed until your legs fell off and this was a pivotal moment in your life.

I’d like to point out that this list is in no particular order, they may not even be in my list of current favourite bands, but either way they were important in shaping my own personal music taste at one point in time.

1. Your Demise

I loved Your Demise as an angsty teenager- I loved everything about that band. I remember fondly listening to 'Ignorance Never Dies' on the way to school on my IPod Touch way back when I was fourteen and doing the same on the journey home. Your Demise were a band that really got me into this scene, purely because growing up very sheltered in Solihull meant that it was hard to get exposure to Hardcore as everyone at school listened to what was popular in the mainstream; anything heavy you had to find about in Kerrang. YD changed all of that for me, and really sparked my interest in the genre. I remember being in year eleven and listening to 'The Kids We Used To Be' on repeat for three to four months when it came out. I couldn’t get enough of it.

I was absolutely gutted when this band broke up. I remember watching their video statement on my phone waiting for a bus and having my whole day instantly ruined. There were some brilliant releases during the time I listened to them, which included 'Ignorance Never Dies', 'TKWUTB', 'The Golden Age' and 'Cold Chillin’. I can honestly say YD were the band that made me pay attention to Hardcore.

2. King Nine

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love King Nine. This band are just absolutely fantastic. I genuinely don’t need to say much about King Nine because, like the saying, if you know then you know. To sum it shortly (because I have to for words and cant just include a gif from Mortal Kombat) King Nine bring crushingly heavy NYHC vibes which make you want to get in a cage with a really angry bear and knock it out. It’s a dreadful analogy, but it’s the best way I can describe it.

One of the most frustrating things about King Nine is that haven't played a show outside of the U.S in God knows how long, and they have a new record coming out at some point in time. I just want it now.

(I understand that everything I have written about King Nine was in no way at all coherent, but this might help to describe how much I love this band.)

3. Ecostrike

So admittedly, I am extremely late to the hype-train for this band (I’m not even sure there even was one because they’re just a damn good band). I’m going to look like a total idiot for writing this, because friends of mine have been telling me to check this band out since 2016, but I only got round to listening to 'Time Is Now' and 'Voice Of Strength' in April of this year.

All three Ecostrike releases are brilliant; all of them scream of influences from 90’s Metallic Hardcore bands, and all of them are worthy of listening to all day on repeat.

Seeing as this band is quite new to my listening palette (Waiting for someone to call me poser for listening to them so late), I can wholeheartedly say this has put me onto other bands similar to Ecostrike, such as Firm Standing Law/Magnitude/Freedom and Fury.

I can’t wait to see what else this band does; I’m excited for their future.

4. Trapped Under Ice

Arguably one of the bands that is in every persons list of favourite bands. To be quite brutally honest, TUI don’t do anything different from most bands (unless you look at Heatwave, and from one of my previous features on this site, we don’t talk about Heatwave) but what they do, is make straight up, no nonsense Hardcore and they do it really well.

'Big Kiss Goodnight' and 'Secrets Of The World' are two of the best full lengths to have ever been released in the genre; Stay Cold is one of the best EP’s of all time. What more do you need to say about this bands back catalogue?

I remember the first time I’d heard of Trapped Under Ice. Me and my friend PJ went to the Rock Sound/Impericon Exposure Tour in Birmingham (Your Demise, Trapped Under Ice, Man Overboard, Basement) having only listened to TUI once or twice before the show, and that’s only because we checked them out on YouTube. Both of us left that show being fans of that band forever; we both had the record on repeat for the rest of the year and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped listening since.

I saw TUI in 2016 at Outbreak for the second time, and it was by far one of the greatest sets I had ever seen. It was almost the same set as the one I’d seen them play four years previously but was equally just as exciting and full of energy. As much as I hated 'Heatwave', I’m still excited to see what the future holds for TUI, but with the ever popular Turnstile and Angel Du$t projects, I doubt we’ll see another record that can compete with 'Big Kiss Goodnight'. Either way, this band are extremely important in shaping my music taste and they’ve probably done the same to yours.

5. Turnstile

I could’ve picked so many bands to talk about to round out this list, I was considering Merauder (but they didn’t drastically change the way I listened to Hardcore) but instead I opted for Turnstile, and there is good reason for this. I first discovered Turnstile in 2015 when they dropped 'Nonstop Feeling' and initially slept on it until much later that year. I’d listened to it in the January a few times and chalked it up to being a pretty cool record before not putting it back on until the October. Thats when I was hooked.

After having that second listening period for Turnstile I couldn’t stop, they were a band (at that time for myself) that wasn’t doing anything similar to anyone else in Hardcore. Turnstile brought a new and fresh approach to hardcore, everything was light and groovy, funky and fun. You could really tell that the band approached writing 'Nonstop Feeling' with the mindset to create a record that made people want to dance and smile.

This record made me delve deeper and further into Turnstiles back catalogue which lead to me to fall in love with his band. 'Pressure To Succeed' is a much darker record than the rest of their releases; it’s closer to a straight up hardcore sound but still has a Turnstile feel to it (also my favourite Turnstile release). 'Step 2 Rhythm' is where Turnstile really found their sound, and' 7' is by far the greatest opening song to any record ever purely because it sounds like the theme tune to an 80’s cop show. 'Move Thru Me' is angsty and calls back to 'Pressure To Succeed' whilst building towards the sound on 'Time & Space', which coincidentally is one of the best modern hardcore releases of all time because it cracked the mainstream and got air play on BBC Radio 1.

Turnstile changed my listening habits for hardcore, to the point where I have “Blue By You” tattooed on my arm, in reference to one of their songs. But the bigger impact they have had is on alternative music altogether- kids from every scene like Turnstile. Even my Mum likes Turnstile, and that says something.

This list wasn’t easy to put together, it’s hard trying to pinpoint bands that change how you listen to this broad and collective genre as Youth Crew is a million miles away from Metalcore, but they're both classified as hardcore. But what matters here, as this article is about my opinions and my experiences, are the records that made me delve deeper into hardcore. Arguably every record or band I’ve ever liked in Hardcore has made me more invested in the genre, but these are just a few mentions of the many bands that have had an impact on myself and my involvement in Hardcore.

By Jack Beale-Burchell