Dedes
Have you tried jamming Helcaraxe?
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Last Active 03-15-20 11:11 pm
Joined 07-14-15

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 Lists
03.28.24 DEDES TOP 50-CORE OF IT ALL03.18.24 DEDES TOP 50 BM-this time, with passion ♦
03.04.24 DEDES TOP 50 DM ALBUM EVAH01.14.24 The Year of Dedes ♦
10.01.23 Whiskey and Music08.24.23 Lookit
07.31.23 One Piece and good jams06.19.23 Break/Breakcore recs plx
04.10.23 2k? 2k.03.09.23 Oh how long it's been
10.30.22 HAPPY HALLOWEEN LOSERS10.02.22 NINE THOUSAND
07.24.22 Beer recs07.13.22 Poke Bowls
07.07.22 Paladins07.02.22 Chili
04.09.22 Rating Johnny's 5's.03.20.22 50k ♦
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DEDES TOP 50-CORE OF IT ALL

Had two lists open and it still timed out lol ty dinosaur sputnik. You get it, all core top 50 w/e.
1Counterparts
Nothing Left to Love

My personal association with all these Counterparts is something that runs beyond the realms of “music”; by now Brendan could record 40 minutes of him pissing in the toilet and I would still slap a 4.5 on that bad boy. They’ve tailed along every tragic moment of my life, every looming negative thought has been exposed via Brendan and tha bois. I never -truly- know what my favorite Counterparts album is, but for an album that I feel represent the best of their twinkling technical proficiency that is, while still firmly rooted in Mis Sig and Shai Hulud-isms, a more melancholic self-defeating beast of their own. This is, imo, where any semblance of light starts to fade as lyrically, this is a profession of suicidal ideation from near start to finish, sounding very much like the end stages of “bargaining” within the chapters of grief.
2Counterparts
You're Not You Anymore

And sometimes this is my favorite! This is the true turning point within their discography, and while I never bought into the narrative that their first 3 records were Mis Sig ripoff’s, they certainly did decide to make a small shift away from that direction by injecting a more weighty atmosphere, a torment that seems to swell more with each record they put out (culminating in the real heart churner Eulogy). They also improve on a more technical level by honing on their ability to string together a ridiculous number of twinkly harmonizing leads and hefty CHUGS in a way that was not nearly so seamless before. Hell, even the drum fills get tighter and more fluid.
3Alexisonfire
Watch Out!

This is all in those layers and layers of vocal diversity and harmonization. There is simply not a band to have managed this on such an impressive level where their essence itself draws deeply from it, the ability to trade off scathing screams and soaring wails, or when the moment calls mesh them into a whole. This culminates extremely well on tracks like “It Was Fear of Myself That Made Me Odd” which has such a delicate, fragile build into some insanely fucking cathartic screams and wails, and ofc, there is also the matter of the riffs. By god does this album have riffs. They’re fun, they’re sad, they’re whimsical. They manage that wickedly difficult but oh so great balance of bouncy joyfulness and immeasurable sadness that is quite pleasing to my earholes.
4Counterparts
A Eulogy for Those Still Here

Absolutely as the title suggests, this sounds like an acceptance of loss before that loss has even properly arrived. This makes for perhaps the most self-deprecating, defeated Counterparts record and for me came along during an extremely heartwrenching moment of my life. I remember vividly-me and a uh immense romantic interest (now she’s a great friend!!) were jamming this in separate households and both having collective fanboy aneurysms over both our favorite bands having new albums out, for her being Lamb of God and mine being uhhh you know. We raved for hours, there were many days where we spoke for hours really. She was a medical anomaly and atop that she found out she had ovarian cancer. My best friends had both just lost parents to cancer, and I feared so goddamn greatly the world was going to lose one of the greatest humans on the friggin planet. “Whispers of Your Death” hit me on an impossibly tragic level and was an immense source of comfort and catharsis for me. She caught i
5Counterparts
A Eulogy for Those Still Here

it early enough, got the tumor removed, is leading a drug-free(1.5 years sober), alcohol-free (4 months), nic free and apparently gluten-free(??? Idk why that) lifestyle. I’m proud of u buddy.
6Propagandhi
Supporting Caste

Man i’m not even the biggest Voivod fan but the way this band can perfectly meld punkish thrashings and progging thrash together alongside heaps of hook-laden melody is wild to me. They manage odd time signatures in such a way that is eccentric but not quite so jarring, and in it make music that is supremely fun and anthemic even if it comes with tinges of heartache, i.e “Potemkin City Limits”. “When the screaming began/Francis shut his eyes/And felt the hand of inhumanity brush over him”, this being a song about a pig given the nickname of Francis who escape being butchered and evaded his pursuers on the streets and surrounding forests of Red Deer, Alberta for months until he was found, and promptly tranquilized. The dart would pierce his bowels and he would die of infection after only 2 days. The song is so damn cathartic and emotionally charged and highlights Propogandhi’s ability to make any listener feel like they’re the subject, like i’m that tortured fearful pig with big ambitio
7Vein.fm
Errorzone

This is an album whose individuality is eventually what made me conclude it was a bona fide mastapeice. The current trend of nu-metal revival and snarling INTENSE hardcore is, imo, something of a failed one, but Errorzone has an authentic and seething rage that absolutely matches it as well as an adept understanding of groove and technicality that are married together perfectly at all times. “This is ascension/This is regression/This is everything you were programmed to be afraid of”. Absolute festival of sick ass one liners.
8Converge
Jane Doe

There’s not much I can say that hasn’t been said already-Jane Doe is many things. Visceral. Trudging. Chaotic. Melancholic. Hopeless. It’s an album addled with rage and despair manifested in so many forms that you almost -forget- just how iconic some of these songs feel. The unfuckwithable maniacal beginnings of “Concubine”. The rocking groove and feral cat-fucking chorus of “Homewrecker”, the ambient catharsis and the tragic ending that is the combined whole of “Pheonix in Flight/Pheonix in Flames”. The trudging, almost doom-like defeat of the t/t. Jane Doe is such a meticulously constructed yet wickedly emotional album and it rules.
9Misery Signals
Of Malice and the Magnum Heart

On the line of meticulously constructed yet wickedly emotional we have it! Mis Sigs! What this band did for the modern scene of metalcore cannot be understated, since while we ofc had bands like Shai Hulud, Hopesfall (and on a less known level, Saints Never Surrender), I do feel like this album is the apex of melodic metalcore with mathcore level intricacies. It flows like rapids, constantly shifting into unpredictable twists and jarring turns yet never giving way, never breaking. It’s so chock full of beautiful sweep and CHUNKY riffs it feels unfeasible that it can continue to be so damn meaty and intricate, but oh boy it does and even with a decent propensity to still hit those -feels- at times. “Gone with the coming storm/We were not meant to contain the sadness of this world/I whispered in her ear/and drew her close”. On another note I do believe this is…maybe one of the first metalcore albums I ever heard alongside like As I Lay Dying. Fug ye.
10Unearth
The Oncoming Storm

I go through phases with this record where I can’t say I have the undying thorough adoration of it like I once did, however I think that is moreso a testament to the fact that this is a supremely upbeat summertime get-in-the-pit-and-windmill kind of album. I.e it’s an album for happy times and life’s too complicated to be so damn happy all the time now! However sometimes the riffs hit, and boy when they do nothing is more elating. This album is so damn hefty yet aloof at all times, with breakdowns that could pulverize mountains into twee pebbles and melodeez that will drag the tears from your eyesockets. It’s fun. I wanna play CoD zombies and drink rockstars again while smelling like onions and grease from my part-time McDonald’s job cause I had no concept of showering after work. Adult life is lame.
11Gaza
I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die

This is misanthropic concentrate in a can. So dismal and pissed at the world it is, in fact, that it’s almost comical. You can tell in the way the riffs wind like a sinister snake and in the way that truly inhuman beastial snarls accompany them that this album's nihilism is true, but that, lyrically, they know how to take the piss. One liners like “They used you to mop up the tears at a Thrice show/Fucking belt buckles everywhere” and “Dumber than a bag of Hatebreed fans” are simultaneously goddamn hilarious as well as being impressively degrading, which is absolutely how this record makes me feel-like i’m being loathed and spat on. I love it.
12Counterparts
The Difference Between Hell and Home

This and Prophets are what got me into Counterparts, and if you told twee 16 y/o me that these mofo’s would continue to get even better I would have shat metaphorical (and literal) bricks. This album is gorgeous, so rife with some of my favorite one liners, and honestly contains some of the most impactful HEFFY riffs in all of their discography (for emotional weightiness “Soil”, for actual ball-shearing riff force “Slave”). It’s an incredibly crafted expansion upon their wicked but slightttttly derivative sadboi melocore of their first two records, and for that I think it’s maybe the most important album of theirs. And it rules. Hard.
13Misery Signals
Controller

Seldom, but it does happen, where I find this is my favorite Mis Sigs album. While I find Karl’s vocals aren’t quite as engaging/diverse as Jesse’s there is no denying the ridiculous wall of FORCE that he exudes that helps make this album so damn beautiful. In here it is the simpler moments, the subtle and ethereal break of “Parallels” or the pubstomping cathartic end of “Ebb and Flow”. The latter even draws a tear or two near every time. “In dreams the sun sets in our eyes/In dreams we’ll never be apart/In dreams I promise you’ll never be alone/How I wish your voice could send me home”.
14Converge
Axe to Fall

This album is chaotic but fun chaotic, not the emotional barnstormer that Jane Doe is. The shreds are shreddier, the nuttiness is nuttier, and the technical proficiency is pushed to its absolute extreme here. So many ridiculous moments intertwine in a way you would never imagine they could, with the sick bass gallops of “Dark Horse” divebombing into some super bouncy guitar leads or the slightly off-kilter patterns of “Cutter” derailing into hefty chugs. This album, by and large, is simply fucking FAST. Ofc these moments are broken up by the sludgy “Worms Will Feed” (Steve Von Till is a perfect slow Converge companion btw) and the more dark and ethereal “Wretched World”, but imo Converge’s best moments are always the ones of unfiltered unyielding chaos.
15Touche Amore
Stage Four

This is a uh, rough album to handle at times. There’s an unfortunate connection that I feel like cancer brings, a tragedy that tethers near every human together that shouldn’t exist in the first place, and this album does a frighteningly apt job of painting every nuance of that undeserved disease. This album is practically dripping with grief and frailty-from the moment Jeremy is lamenting how his mothers hands began to shake when drinking a coffee to him lamenting his quality as a son a year after her passing for touring too much and not visiting her more. My closest friends both lost a parent to cancer and watching their processing of grief shows to me that no matter how well on you continue, the pain of loss never leaves. Fuck cancer.
16Norma Jean
All Hail

God I love the immense GROOVES off this album, hell contender for grooviest mxc album ever??? Mayhaps. This is just an album loaded to the brim with bestial heavy moments and riffs with some SWING and for that it is -chef’s kiss- perfect for when I just wanna go dummy ape mode and start slingin fists.
17Incendiary
Thousand Mile Stare

Also a riffstomper but this one has a heavier intent behind it, being much more politically charged and honestly easier to understand (All Hail is shrouded in a lot of uh, needlessly confusing metaphors and symbolism IMO). I have a slight soft spot for what little I know of NYHC and Incendiary know how to stretch the limits of anger and intensity within a style that isn’t nearly so heavy as a lot of modern Knocked Loose-esque style hardcore. This is where I feel to some extent lyrical prowess holds importance, and these mofo’s know how to craft some wicked lines. “There’s no hope in an unclenched fist/There’s no end when you believe in this/Still beating, still burning.”
18Zao
Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest

IMO this album is the closest a metalcore album can come to achieving black metal vibes. It’s harrowing and ritualistic, with vocals even to boot that much resemble the wicked snarls that you find in the most misanthropic styles of BM (dude almost sounds like Phil McSorely from Cobalt at times). This album almost pleasantly frightened me when I first heard about…2 years ago??? You have meaty groove-fests spitting bile i.e “Lies of Serpents”, the off-kilter feral energy of “Ravage Ritual”, straight almost tribal ambiance of “To Think of You Is To Treasure An Absent Memory”, honestly this album is spooky fucked up fun.
19Ling Tosite Sigure
Inspiration Is Dead

Big ups to Psycho Pass for my discovery of this band because by the gods are they a whole wonderful lot of everything. Unbridled chaos, sweeping melodies, rich grooves, cathartic heartshredders. While each album of theirs does these things to varying levels I do feel the most balanced essence of these qualities lies off this album, with the almost Axe to Fall-esque intro of “nakano kill you”, the mournful patient build in “AM 3:45”, the fun funky jive of “Disco Flight”, musically this just does goddamn everything. I also adore the vocals-impressively shrill sure, but in a way that is somehow soothing and pleasant, even down to the unhinged voice cracks that seem like a natural progression of the singing itself. Here’s 4 u Johnny boy, Ling rule.
20Knocked Loose
A Tear in the Fabric of Life

Knocked Loose have become the harbingers of HEAVY. Any way in which hardcore can take its direction into sonic excess the arf boys have unraveled, and thus far this EP is the best example of it. Sure, A Different Shade of Blue had chunky low end riffs and some pretty distressed yells, but this EP ups that to the nth degree and adds a healthy dose of ominous vibes to make what I believe to be one of most genuinely mosh ready things i’ve ever heard (and to no surprise, the KL pit is the most lethal one i’ve ever seen lmao).
21Amia Venera Landscape
The Long Procession

HELL YEAH lol we’re onto some madness now, this album is an anomaly. Thunderous, meaty, melodic, meticulous. The number of ideas that are crammed into this record are almost hard to fathom, especially off of imo what is still probably the apex of the album, 1st track “Empire”. It works out like an infinitely expanding and destructive nebula, easily swallowing up everything in sight. The rest of the record definitely takes on a more patient approach with these kinds of moments of monstrous grandeur used as a way to either begin or cap off the more patient refrains, but that’s hardly to say it’s a -bad- thing. Hell, it’s the patient and beautiful build of “Glances (part 1)” that makes the wall-of-sound vocals in “Glances (part 2)” hit so ridiculously goddamn hard. Ooof this rules also big up to Mars I think you got me into this but uhhh idk.
22Pianos Become the Teeth
The Lack Long After

Another heartbreaker not far from the vein of Stage Four regarding how it makes me feel. It’s vulnerable and exposed, like a puppy shivering in the lonesome winter night. The way it kicks in with that insanely cathartic no-fucking-frills intro of “I’ll Be Damned” will never fail to chill me to my core, in part due to the thunderous chords and drum fills that ravage this scape of sadness, but even moreso due to how fragile yet abrasive the vocals are here. To say the least, these are some of the most authentically tormented vocals in post-hardcore.
23August Burns Red
Rescue & Restore

I can’t say I enjoy ABR -quite- like I did many years back, but oml were they an important band for a budding like metalcore me. While Mis Sigs and AILD may have shortly followed this may have been my actual first mxc band, and I remember thinking they were an unfuckwithable tour de force of technical proficiency, the most most emotionally charged thing to have been gifted from god's hands unto mortal soil. I’ve come to recognize that they do have their core issues (i.e homogeny) but of the albums that really harness the lightning-in-a-bottle energy that ABR exude, this is it. There’s such an honestly jolly nature to all the bouncy guitar leads and impressively fierce shrieks/growls that it still worms that 16 y/o Mountain Dew slammin ABR jammin oaf outta me. Also they may still have the best drummer in mxc admittedly so uh, yeah owns and slaps.
24While She Sleeps
This Is the Six

WSS had such a tragic downfall from one of the most heartfelt and earnest acts in the bigger scene of metalcore to the penultimate edgy machismo laughing stock act of it. You can also begin to forget they were once full of ridiculously blood-pumping riffs, scathing screams that aren’t far off from old Oli Sykes if he dropped an octave. They were an honest and heartwarming band with fun fuckin bangers (“Dead Behind the Eyes”, “This Is The Six”) as well as some tearjerking ballads (“Our Courage, Our Cancer”). God how the times have gone. Can we ever get them back?
25Operation Ivy
Energy

This is the essence of sunkissed beach with a skateboarding fohawk wearing greaseball who sells you dank kush by the boardwalk and says he's "stoked on life man" and I mean that as a good thing. This is old school ska punk fun.
26The Casket Lottery
Survival Is For Cowards

This album was actually quite a surprise, but has grown to undoubtedly become my favorite album within the realm of midwest emo. Honestly, i’m not sure how much this -properly- qualifies for a -core list, but there is doubtlessly a sort of distribution between dark, gray and dismal emo-rock and semi-abrasive punkish energy that makes me imagine it’s toooo much of a stretch. Regardless, this album is uh, truly great. It’s so impressively stock full of immensely beautiful grandeur as well as moments that are muted and dull. It’s like walking lonesome at night in the city under a gentle rain, screaming to your hearts content about every frustration that’s addled your brain in the weeks past. Oof.
27Of Machines
As If Everything Was Held In Place

Big mid 2000’s mega emo vibes. Within its realm this is as technically impressive as a record gets imo, with plenty of like, actually cool and engaging riffs and vocals that, while effeminate and high-pitched to the point of being almost a parody of the scene itself, are beyond the shadow of a doubt the highlight of the album. Something about them is endearing, maybe even charming, but maybe it simply manifests my desire for petite softie emo e-girl gf. Perhaps it is a bit of both. Jam those high pitch wails in “Becoming Closer To Closure” and an answer may come.
28The Dillinger Escape Plan
Option Paralysis

God this album is visceral and chaotic even now the level of dizzying destruction behind those guitar leads and DISGUSTING snarls hit me like a freight train. I probably don’t need to explain much about the frenetic energy of TDEP, but imo this album might be the greatest balance between that wildfire energy and hook-crafting ability that makes everything they’ve ever done rule to at least some degree. Those wicked scalings that work like a cyclone on “Farewell, Mona Lisa”, the bluesy melancholy of “Widower”, the sludgy ominous vibes of “Chinese Whispers”oh yeah this rules.
29Defeater
Lost Ground

Undoubtedly the best thing Defeater ever did (even if Travels does quite rule as well). It has so much snap, so much goddamn RHYTHM and imo makes for what is the most fun yet emotionally poignant release of theirs. This is for sure a drum-centric record, as evidenced by the satisfying twists and turn of tracks like “Red, White and Blues” and kinda highlights that honestly a lot of Defeater’s quality was always carried by just how percussively driven their music is/was. Ofc it would be unfair to attribute this ep for being badass for only that reason cause some of the most lyrically destructive moments are also from this ep. “Only caskets and folded flags/No hope, just folded flags”.
30Modern Life Is War
Witness

And here is the band that is, more than likely, to thank for Defeater. Much of the same can be applied here albeit MLIW is much less of a gimmick. Sick, thundering drum rhythms, scathing power chords and once more, anthemic chants and gut-wrenching vocal performances. In particular the simple introduction of “So what the fuck are you going to do kid?” has always been strangely…moving to me. A simple but sharp way of taking on confusion, of taking on life’s lost pathways. Amidst the worst of life’s chaos, sometimes the question is that goddamn simple.
31Every Time I Die
Low Teens

ETID are the kingpins of straight mathematical groove and imo this is best example of it (even if I lauded Radical as a masterpiece the moment it came out, admittedly it has waned a -bit- over time). There’s so many VICIOUS southern-fried riffs here i.e “Glitches” (still a top 5 breakdown imo), freakishly visceral anger in “Petals” (also best ETID song) and even some kind of enjoyable gritty rock ballads that are, imo, the weaker points of this record but still fun “C++(Love Will Get You Killed)” or “It Remembers”.
32Saosin
Translating the Name

Yeah this really grew on me. I quite enjoyed it when I discovered it around..7 or 8 months ago? Maybe a bit longer? It’s a similar reason to why I love Of Machines so much, being that it retains that same effeminacy that is the founding pillars of early 2000’s post-hardcore. Those winding, gentle guitar leads that culminate into BIG melodramatic catharsis (surprisingly breakdown free here???) and Anthony Green’s unique nasally whine (sounds bad I know but it’s charming and pleasant!!) make this EP so damn fun and twinkly and beautiful and all sorts of good stuff. Would they ever approach these same heights again? Unfortunately not.
33Turnstile
Glow On

Anthemic joyous Hardcore/80’s summery pop worship for the collective masses. God, Turnstile are just so fucking unifying. I discovered this band when they released their Step 2 Rhythm EP, and they had like max 2k listeners on last.fm, now they’ve evolved into a commercial anomaly that marries together people from all walks of musical life-punks, indie girls, 80’s synthpop worshippers-and all of them can mosh and windmill like a mofo in the Turnstile pit. I remember distinctly dying of dehydration (first festival in awhile, learned the hard way venue don’t take cash anymore lmao) after a full 6 or so hours in the wicked summer sun. There were flowery blonde preps, muscly skinheads, dudes that looked like me, all moshing, headbanging, stoked on Turnstile. A trashcan was getting tossed about like a football in a pit of almost a hundred people. In that moment, the world was at peace. This album may not be my favorite -core album, but I think it may be the most important one in modern hardc
34Every Time I Die
Radical

This is ETID at their most unstable and dizzyingly furious. The context becomes a bit sadder when you consider the real mental deterioration of Keith Buckley (albeit the details are a bit shrouded in he said/she said bullshit) but it’s hard not to enjoy the insanely tangible rage that this album exudes. The spacious suspenseful pause of “Dark Distance”, the oddly cinematic “We Go Together”, this album is a diverse exercise in unstoppable anger.
35Casey
Love Is Not Enough

Oh how the throes of love are both sweet and somber. In my experience it lends greatly to personal growth but has also caused more pain than it ever has joy, and this album to me reflects just how irrationally hard it can be to unravel those attachments when fondness creeps at every corner. It shows how even the most joyous and innocent of loves can take to very dark corners when the byproduct of fear, jealousy, disappointment that can come alongside it overwhelm one’s senses. Oh yeah, this album is melodramatic and sad as hell. “You were my little bird and I saw fit to clip your wings/And resented you because for me you never chose to sing.”
36State Faults
Clairvoyant

This is an uncomfortable listen. Extremely shrills vocals, so much so that they pierce every fiber of flesh. This album has so much immediate emotional spillage that it feels like a tidal waves is collapsing the structures around, like the world is burning to cinders and you stand amidst it, now isolated. Supremely sad twinky post-rockish post-hardcore that hurts my SOUL.
37Culling the Weak
Culling the Weak

These dudes never blew it up in any way of sorts which surprises me because by the fucking gods were they absolute RIPE for picking amongst any lover of mid 2000’s melocore who wants bigger HEAVIES and badder shreds. Seriously this album is just so fun and innocent, full of generic joyfully cheesy melocore lyrics and some gorgeous high-octane guitar leads that shred harder than Tony Hawk hitting a 720 ollie. Big ups to Zippa for introducing me to this behemoth.
38August Burns Red
Found in Far Away Places

Honestly same as what I said about ABR earlier but with a bit less creative diversity and a bigger emphasis on slightly more massive wall-of-sound djuns. Has “Everlasting Ending” which is for sure a cheesefest but as honestly moved me to tears during really bad depressive bouts. They’re a band of earnestness and honesty and nothing about that changes here. “Bravery will find you/When your head is hung low/Your fear is like a fever/It too will go”.
39END (USA-NJ)
The Sin of Human Frailty

END have done an impressive job mending together every variation of extreme modern hardcore into a visceral, seething hodgepodge of all things angry. The industrial musings of “Thaw” is for sure the best moment on this album but the mathcore-levels of chaos off of “Embodiment of Grief” and the harrowing slow-churning ambiance of “Hollow Urn” are extremely grisled tracks as well.
40Norma Jean
Polar Similar

Polar Similar is such a satisfying blend of crunchy, thicc guitar riffs and clinically clean technical melodic bits that it makes for an album that, while extremely friggin pissed, sure as hell knows how to rock hard. Actually it can be said that i’ve always thought of this album as a groovy rock’n’roll album -turned- metalcore. It has a certain smoky swagger to it amidst all the dissonance and noise that makes it feel like a badass rock album with a veneer of insanely heavy hardcore to accompany it. Best NJ song is “Synthetic Sun” don’t argue it bish.
41The Secret
Solve Et Coagula

Oof this album exudes sinister like no other. Another perfect hodgepodge album but this one is, in these exact doses-40 percent grindcore, 30 percent crust punk, 20 percent black metal and 10 percent doom. It comes together to form a heatseeking bile spitting riff monster with blasts galore, feral snarls and an atmosphere that conjures deep endless fogs and demonic apertures with unwieldy grisled creatures awaiting inside. Spooky.
42This or the Apocalypse
Haunt What's Left

This like ABR with slightly cooler guitar work but more overall dudes within the context of a single record. The highs are high, and the lows are mid, but as a whole it’s hard to denying how tight those snare fills are on “Subverse” or how gorgeous and uplifting the riffs are on “Lamnidae”.
43Touche Amore
Is Survived By

It’s Touche. It’s honest and painful and heartfelt with some of my favorite percussive moments in all of post-hardcore (those blasts in “Just Exist” punch a hole through my chest) and honestly does a great job evolving the emotionally poignant but somewhat one-note sound that Touche had already been crafting, injecting an incredibly welcome sense of patience and ethereal ambiance that make this album more diverse and lush than the previous ones (it being so elegant is not to take away from how energetic it is ofc).
44HORSE the band
Desperate Living

Lol this album is…weird but not in a way that is off-putting. In fact it is decidedly bright and welcoming and catchy as FUCK, just that it, in a wonderful fashion, disregards any desire for convention and instead opts for meaty hardcore bits, bouncy chiptune bits, bangin’ alt rockers and whatever the hell it desire at any given moment to make for a record that is goofy and dorky as supremely fun. “Cloudwalker” and “Arrive” are beyond the shadow of a doubt the apex of this album.
45Gallows (UK)
Grey Britain

Frank Carter was an extremely misanthropic and angry man and it exudes to much force here that it’s hard not to feel it render your flesh from bone from just how abrasive it. The vocals exude natural grit with a pure concentrate of smoker’s lung, the riffs are sharp and punchy as hell and lyrically this is a simple but honest jab at every POS in society and every POS that is themselves, including, ofc, Frank himself. Misery fucking loves us
46Glassjaw
Worship and Tribute

I love Glassjaw but can never properly explain what I think they are as a band. Post-hardcore with ethereal dreamy tendencies and pubstomping moments intermittently placed throughout? Alt-metal with grungy, dirty atmosphere that is somehow lush and pleasant in the same stroke that sometimes delves into chaos and disarray? This album is so accessible yet somehow still strange in that, there is nothing strange about it, but it is still goddamn hard to describe (avoiding the now maligned monopoly on “this sounds like Deftones!!!” cause they're the same age as bands lmao.)
47Propagandhi
Potemkin City Limits

The only album on this list where i’m still a bit unsure as to whether it’s placement should be higher as the immense level of nuance on this beautiful heart-churner only continues to make my soul at ease more and more as I come back to it. This is, ofc, distinctly a hxc punk record, but the number of twinkly, natural lead progressions that accompany those high-octane absolutely ripping power chords that are strewn about on this album make for something that is so oddly and impossibly beautiful. For sure it also helps that Propoghandi’s vocalist has one of the greatest projections and highest levels of clarity of any vocalist in punk. GOAT tracks-”Cut Into the Earth” and “Iterations”(the ending especially is oomph GORGEOUS).
48Born of Osiris
The Discovery

Wonky shreddy djenty progcore that is easily the best thing BoO ever did. There’s a whimsical dreamscape here that they never quite managed to capture again, which is a tad disappointing but also allows this to stand as a unique relic that sparkles and gleans like a shiny beacon in a sad sub-sub genre.
49Vi Som Alskade Varandra Sa Mycket
Det Onda. Det Goda. Det Vackra. Det Fula.

This is the soundtrack to bitter isolated winters. The soundtrack to anguish that flows like streams through your veins as a single tear perforates the snow. The kind of melodrama that makes you wanna wax cheesy poetry. Beautiful Swedish post-hardcore is beautiful.
50Burner
It All Returns To Nothing

Holy fucking fierce and meaty and heavy. This album is the concentrated incarnate of all things monstrous in hxc and death metal combined into a great towering wall of flames that amassed within it the following-stomping riffs, phleghmy gutturals, pulverizing blast beats. It’s massive as fuck and has maybe favorite moshcore track “Hurt Locker”.
51The Dillinger Escape Plan
Dissociation

I’m dissociating as I make this list. This album is really good. Yeah.
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