American Bands

"The faulty mechanism of hope has disintegrated."

"Founded by Gorilla Biscuits guitarist Walter Schreifels, Quicksand were at the forefront of the post-hardcore/alt-metal wave in the ’90s. And that’s exactly the point in hardcore history that the beginning of “Fazer,” the intro track of their debut album, hints toward."

"A major innovator of dramatic, experimental guitar music was Louisville, Kentucky’s Slint. The band’s final album, Spiderland, was released in 1991 and is considered one of the founding works of post-rock and its cousin, math rock."

"She’s my sex bomb baby! Yeah!"

"We are the gone Cast aside clothes like funeral roses, and dance straight through the psalm I’m dead in the water Don’t come here for me I was once alive in the deserts eyes on the day it wed the sea I drew a chalk outline around your city Hushed the sobs in your halls But we both know it’s a killer, baby he will outrun them all There is so much shame in how little we’ve gained for so long Now the sky is falling And you’re just repeating every word I say."

"American Football made an EP and a self-titled album in the late '90s that didn't garner tons of attention at the time of their releases, but in the years that followed, the sparse and emotional sound the trio created became an influential emo touchstone. Their stature grew, and when they reunited in 2014 for a handful of shows, the outpouring of love and support they received spurred them to make the reunion a more permanent venture."

"We underestimated Doctor Doctor! Give me the news."

"Death by division don't call it jealousy it's an exercise in infection control insanity's masterpiece split at the seams shakespearean virgin your world is a stage but your charms in the basket they gave the ax to an amateur I haven't stopped laughing how am I supposed to line this up kneel down vanity everyone's waiting we all want."

"Big Black had noise-rock down to a science. The band essentially had no midrange. Bassist Dave Riley held down the low-end, while Steve Albini and Santiago Durango opted for extreme treble, which was made all the more piercing thanks to a penchant for playing with metal picks. With the industrial thump of drum machine “Roland” keeping rhythm, and a habit of setting off firecrackers on stage before playing, Big Black essentially created misanthropy you could sing along to."

"San Francisco’s Flipper made music that sounded like the opposite of what most would consider sexy. And for that matter, it didn’t even sound like what most of us would associate with punk — where loud and fast once ruled, Flipper played slow and sludgy. Black Flag would do likewise in just a couple years, but in 1982 there was little that sounded like Flipper, and even less that sounded like “Sex Bomb,” a drunken mess of a punk song that took the template of early garage rock from the ’60s and stretched it out over seven minutes, simplified the lyrics and blasted lots of gnarly sax all over it. It feels nihilistic — the same thing over and over again, gradually becoming messier and messier, with no narrative or point to speak of."

"We're not equipped to stay, unloved But its all we've got and we're not at all alright Theres no difference between being holy and alone."

"We all cater to the fire, once the walls come rushing down for shame I can say it better than you felt it And I can be it bigger than you needed it."

"Sign my farewell with the chimes of clock radios 7a.m."

"Do you hear me? Am I coming through at all? Is any of this making sense? You've got a ghost on your hands. A televisual image only partially clear. Scrambled phantom (I wish we'd all just stop talking at once)."

"Though they could easily be considered an “experimental” group as well, Dance Gavin Dance are the Sacramento-born post-hardcore group that, though the lineup has changed quite a few times, have always held a special place in alternative music history. Their influences range from MF DOOM to the Temptations, as well as other post-hardcore groups such as At The Drive-In. Mixing harsh and clean vocals, they take note from classic hardcore and prog-rock genres, though it’s the technical attention and structuring of the songs that set DGD firmly in the post-hardcore hall of fame."

"Hey there girls, I'm a cunt There was venom in the heart of the dagger."

"All rise. Hallow be my name. In this kingdom we came without calling. Hallelujah."

"Van Halen didn’t have much in common with The Clash or the Sex Pistols, but the Californians’ brand of ‘Atomic Punk’ had the same urgency as the London punks."

"Though their genre is arguably elusive — and can be described across the internet as everything from rock and screamo to Christian metal — Underoath embody post-hardcore. Initially drawing on death metal as an inspiration, they built a band on the bones of the Florida metal hardcore scenes. But as the group saw internal changes, they shifted the sound, forgoing some of the heavier notes for cleaner vocals and rhythm changes."

"If you got it all then you got it right I’m gonna do what you say and get way out of line Nobody’s gonna stop me now It’s not how it looks unless you say nothing We all agree this proposal’s been sentenced to death Are we baiting the right hook to get your attention The media needs another blackout We’ve been calling Flooding hotlines We’ve applied mascara to the radio but that’s just a quick fix and we need a little more Does it matter to you at all Are you listening? or have you tuned out?"

"I’m gonna shine out in the wild kindness and hold the world to its word."

"[Glassjaw] ushered the genre out from the underground with a unique iteration of the NY hardcore sound, claiming their audience with their rowdy, unforgettable live shows and thoughtful songs that continue to enthrall us today."

"The date on the sleeve says 1978, but a cursory listen to Van Halen’s debut tells you that it is, by some distance, the greatest guitar album of the 1980s. [...] Listening to it is a joyful experience, and that love of music gave meaning to every note they played."

"We’re playing the 80s. Other bands are still playing the 70s."

"In high school, if you were playing any kind of music that wasn't dance, or just something that was really different—you know, rock, metal or hard rock, anything like that—then you needed to look like it. You needed to look like a bad dude, and we just looked like normal dudes....It wasn't about trying to impress everybody, because we looked at those types of people as weenies trying to do that stuff ... We just wore our normal stuff and we didn't really think about it. It just kind of happened that way and I think because we were searching for an extreme style, coupled with this no image, who-cares-what-we-look-like thing, then I think we fit in to that new movement that we discovered a little ways later, the whole Bay Area thrash scene."

"A Static Lullaby [capture] metalcore’s heavy tendencies while staying rooted in post-hardcore through clean melodies and classic punk riffs."

"Is it worth it can you even hear me Standing with your spotlight on me Not enough to feed the hungry I'm tired and I felt it for awhile now In this sea of lonely The taste of Ink is getting old It's four o' clock in the fucking morning Each day gets more and more like the last day Still I can see it coming While I'm standing in the river drowning This could be my chance to break out This could be my chance to say goodbye Can't take this town much longer Being half dead wasn't what I planned to be Now I'm ready to be free"

"As Cities Burn brought an experimental, artsy approach to post-hardcore."

"Saosin’s cohesive mix of screamo and alt-rock elements set them apart as a core contributor to the development of post-hardcore in the early 2000s."

"Senses Fail’s debut album, Let It Enfold You, introduced some of the best post-hardcore songs of the 2000s."

"To save hardcore, Fugazi had to destroy it and build something new from what scraps could still be salvaged. By 1986, Minor Threat frontman Ian MacKaye was bored and frustrated with the violent, pig-headed masculinity prevalent in hardcore scenes across the country. He found kinship in the arty introspection of Rites of Spring, whose singer-guitarist Guy Picciotto and drummer Brendan Canty joined the fold of MacKaye’s next band. With these new members and bassist Joe Lally as collaborators, MacKaye paired slower and more rhythmically supple arrangements with an unrelenting commitment to his DIY, straight-edge values and the revolutionary spirit at the heart of the genre."

"Senses Fail has remained at the fore of the commercial hardcore scene since issuing their 2004 debut, Let It Enfold You. Mainstays of the Billboard 200 and U.S. indie charts, the band has released a string of acclaimed albums."

"The calming, atmospheric vibe at the beginning of mewithoutYou’s “In A Sweater Poorly Knit” is there to suck listeners in before the band start to build layer after layer of sounds, showing their capabilities in bringing out punk energy without ever tapping into harsh noise."

"Swallow my pride, it's mine to quell I'll put you through hell, I'll put you through hell"

"Meat Puppets were never your average punk band. [...] By the time they made Meat Puppets II, they really didn’t care about remaining within anyone else’s definition of punk rock. On [that album], they embraced their love of bluegrass, jazz, psychedelia, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, and really whatever else piqued their interest. The result is an album that’s punk as fuck, regardless of how little it sounds like the Ramones."

"The grandaddy of them all, Rites Of Spring arguably kicked off the entire [post-hardcore] movement with their sole album. With the hardcore scene in their hometown of Washington DC flourishing but becoming increasingly thuggish, they stepped away and changed things up, keeping the breakneck punk pace but displaying their own vulnerability and fears in the lyrics and whipping in something the genre was sorely missing: proper tunes."

"When it comes to emo royalty, Austin, Texas' Mineral is sitting at the head table."

"Rodan is one of the most underrated post-hardcore bands to come out of the 90s."

"Double Nickels on the Dime rewrote the rules for what a punk band–or just a band in general–could be, and it still sounds radical today. It’s not hard to hear the album’s influence on anyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Guided by Voices to Fugazi, but for the most part, the Minutemen’s vast influence tends to come through on a spiritual and ideological level. No other band sounds like Double Nickels on the Dime, and I don’t know if anyone even could if they tried."

"I take it for granted If I could love you unconditionally I- Could iron out the edges of the darkest sky For some of us, it aint enough, it aint enough"

"There’s a good argument to be made that no album had a more profound impact on the development of pop punk than [Milo Goes to College]. It was firmly rooted in the hardcore scene and played with the same rawness, speed, and intensity as early Black Flag, [...] but the Descendents added in bright, catchy melodies through Milo Aukerman’s bratty, snotty delivery, and basically invented pop punk in the process. And it wasn’t just the sound of pop punk that Milo Goes to College paved the way for; it was the lyrical content too. With songs about hating your parents, wanting girls to like you, being a loser, and a hint of social criticism, Milo Goes to College laid out what would be the primary concerns for a large majority of pop punk bands to come. Just about every major pop punk band has sung the Descendents’ praises."

"Rites of Spring prides itself as one of the great hardcore punk bands, but many professional music critics and punk historians claim this beloved Washington D.C. outfit to be the first emo band. Mainly because the band's lyrics were more personal and in-depth than any of its hardcore punk contemporaries. Though Rites of Spring didn't want anything to do with the emo label, the band's only studio release has stood the test of time and got the ball rolling on a movement."

"It’s nearly impossible to guess how the alternative rock boom of the ’90s would’ve sounded without the direct influence and ripple effect of My War."

"What Nirvana did was nothing new; Husker Du did it before us."

"[Descendents are] the only reason blink-182 existed. It was the first band the three of us all agreed on."

"Considered one of the most influential American doom and sludge metal ensembles, Saint Vitus emerged in the early 1980s alongside monolithic contemporaries like Pentagram, Trouble, and Witchfinder General. With a sound torn from the pages of the gospel of Black Sabbath, the band issued a string of authoritative albums."

"Rites of Spring might be the most influential punk group that pretty much no one has ever heard of. [...] The example they set – their conduct, their attitude, and of course their music – would be hugely influential. A model, if you will, for how hardcore punk might grow up."

"Multiple journalists, as well as members of thrash bands both among and outside the Big Four, often maintain that Exodus should be named as one of the Big Five; Dave Mustaine even suggested back in 1990 that Exodus, not Anthrax, should be in that elite club."

"Bay Area thrashers Death Angel only missed out being counted among the Big Four by a matter of months. [...] Death Angel still shred like it's 1982 and they're playing in a Daly City garage."

"Exodus, arguably the most musically violent band in the Bay Area thrash movement, were also the most vocal in their hatred of fishnet-wearing glam-rockers, often calling for their fans to “Kill the poseurs”, wherever they may be found."