From the mid-’00s to the mid-’10s, metalcore and deathcore were looking like the future of heavy music, with bands like Asking Alexandria, Of Mice & Men, Whitechapel and The Devil Wears Prada releasing albums that peaked in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. At the turn of the last decade, Warped Tour featured as many just as many ‘core’ bands as it did traditional punk acts, and many other metalcore and deathcore package tours began popping up. Hot Topic was stuffed with T-shirts from the rosters of Rise and Sumerian Records, while other labels began signing up these breakdown-heavy bands left and right.
The landscape has obviously changed quite a bit since: many of the genre’s biggest names either broke up or pivoted to completely different sounds, Warped Tour folded, and Hot Topic’s shelves are now focused on classic rock nostalgia and emo rap. The days of slurping down a Monster, strapping on an I Love Boobies wristband, and busting out your best crabcore moves are in the past – but at least we have the memories.
There are also loads of bands from that era that you might not remember. The big names will live forever in chart history (and our own playlists), but there are so many metalcore and deathcore bands whose legacies lie in broken links to defunct blogs and YouTube comments. We’ve rounded up 10 bands from that generation of headbangers who never quite made it the way others did, but who are still worth remembering…