Dear Hollowâs Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]
By Dear Hollow
Yâall ready to skronk? Cuz itâs âbout to get skronky. I had a realization about midway this year that all I was doing was contributing mathcore releases to Kenstrocityâs Stuck in the Filter pieces. So instead of painting myself as a one-trick pony who can only do math three times a month, I decided to reveal my cards as a mathcore sellout by the end of 2023. I have been given an incurably bad taste this year, and a spotlight under which I stand alone while commenters and colleagues alike chuck tomatoes and copies of Mercyful Fateâs Dead Again and Saxonâs Rock the Nations at me (saying, and I quote, âget some culture, you selloutâ). See, when the inimitable Kronos left, he took with him the taste for the mathy skronk. I suppose Dolphin Whisperer has some math love built into him, but weâre too busy squabbling over details most of the time.1
Thus, I have compiled a list of some mathcore releases you might, uh, tolerate! Because I have filtered and expressed opinions over acts like See You Next Tuesday, Sleepsculptor, Soulkeeper, and Squid Pisser (Iâm not sure why I picked all mathcore acts that start with S, but here we are) you can go find âem yourself if youâre soooo upset why I didnât include them. Without further ado, letâs get skronky (another S!).
Better Lovers // God Made Me an Animal â Look, I get itâs an EP, but when your band consists of the instrumental section of the defunct Every Time I Die, the guitarist of Fit for an Autopsy and End, and the vocalist of the legendary The Dillinger Escape Plan, we can make some exceptions. Charisma and sleaze drip through the southern-fried leads of these four songs, while Greg Puciatoâs unmistakably charismatic vocals rip across, formidable cleans gracing melodic noodling with a catchiness that contrasts with the dense groove. Speaking of the groove, they hit at just the right moments, recalling I Am Hollywood-era He is Legend in âSacrificial Participant,â while punk speed graces â30 Under 13â with a franticness, while the riff in the title track is absolutely mammoth. Quite the lineup, and while the sound is what youâd largely expect from its ranks, the five-piece makes its debut EP just damn good mathcore.
Chamber // A Love to Kill For â Nashvilleâs Chamber enters the fray with a sound that weaponizes mathcore for maximum punishment, a tad like Frontierer meeting late-era The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza in a knife-fight behind the old Kmart: down-tuned thuggishness, chunky and bruising rhythms, noodly riffs, and squealing leads.2 Vocalist Jacob Lilly offers a vicious performance, his roars and fry vocals dripping with vitriol, while the cutthroat axework collapses and crushes around him, and drummer Taylor Carpenter hits the kit balancing rock-solid anchoring and pure mania. A Love to Kill For is a relentless metalcore attack barbed with hardcore punk, mathcore, and hints of deathcore: carefully calculated, intensely brutish, and worth every concussion Chamber can muster.
Euclid C Finder // The Mirror, My Weapon, I Love You â A balanced affair unafraid of the noisemaking, Baltimoreâs Euclid C Finder (presumably named after the Fallout weapon) releases a grind-tinged math attack of viciousness and oddity in equal measure. Nineteen minutes of wonky rhythms, blasting percussion, manic dissonance, panic chords aplenty, and insane vocals greet the ears with the subtlety of a five-car pileup. It would be easy to dismiss The Mirror⌠as just another Dillingerâ or Convergeâ worshiper, but then the groove hits. The trio balances its treble trouble with a chunky hit of downtuned intensity and gruff barks that gives respite to the million-miles-per-hour of noodly technicality. Itâs a toothy and intense affair that never takes itself too seriously (i.e. âJonathan Davis 10000 BCâ) and never overstays its welcome.
Telos // Delude â What makes Copenhagenâs Telos unique is its blackened and noisy take on mathcore. Or, if you please, a mathy take on blackened hardcore â whatever floats your boat. A bit like if Hexis (with whom they released a split this year) and Botch had a scary-looking baby. Misanthropy oozes from every orifice and hostile noise fills negative space, ominous leads and dissonant plucking wearing haunting grooves into the brain. Tracks like âBastion,â âIâve Been Gone for So Long,â and âAs Atlas Stumbledâ are full-on assaults of intense proportions, while the more subdued ritualism and atmosphere in âI Accept / I Receiveâ and âThroneâ show the depths of Telosâ lurching and rumbling depravity. Fans of mathcore and blackened hardcore would do well to do a headlong dive into this particular abyss.
Thin // Dusk â Mathcore gone grind. Reveling in tight descending patterns of insanity, with a fearlessness of skull-caving death metal, New York Cityâs Thin will beat you senseless with every weapon in its arsenal. A wall of noisy noodling, panic chords, and squalid feedback is erected with every attack, collapsing for death metal-inspired weight and dissonant plucking throughout that feels like homage to this yearâs Asystole. Screamo orientation fuels the fire and brevity is the name of the game, but toss in formidable performances from all forces involved, with howling screeches giving way to gravelly gurgles, groovy riffs giving way to frantic tremolo, and the rhythm section cutting through the darkness. As the cheery acoustic strums of closer âMangroveâ sound in final respite, Thin revels in its sonic and lyrical pairing of nostalgia and trauma â a dark night of the soul.
Dead Soma // Pathos â A more rhythmic and atmospherically spidery but nonetheless viciously punishing take on mathcore. Best described as Loathe covering Converge songs, the sepia-toned and mysterious Deftones influence is unmistakable, but Swedenâs Dead Soma is unafraid to embrace the intensity. Hinting upon djent not unlike countrymen Vildhjarta and weighty rhythms like Car Bomb, the grooves are palpable and punishing, guided by the dead hands of electronic glitches and pinch harmonics and dragged by manic barks and screeches. Chino Moreno-esque whispery cleans and subdued mumbles add to the glitching and warm synthwork in the more laid-back tracks, which add further dynamic to the relentlessly fat riffs and mathy noodling (see: âLife and Limbâ to âError Blemishâ). Warmly atmospheric, it carries a vintage tone by the vocals and synth, but is ultimately uncompromising in its brutality.
MouthBreather // Self-Tape â This one is less mathcore by sound and more by name. The Boston collectiveâs debut LP Iâm Sorry Mr. Salesman (another filter cleaning I contributed to) was Coalesce-meets-Converge-core through and through in a groovy take on mathcore, but after a come-to-metalcore-Jesus moment they go straight for the jugular with a nu-infested, groove-infected -core sound for Self-Tape. The viciousness is front and center, with aggression and fury spewing from every chug and growl, with its storied mathcore history offering its energetic bite. Now featuring more deathcore weight and nu-metal influence to slam into your sorry-ass ears alongside the ghosts of Christmas skronk, Self-Tape reflects a descent into madness through its very reasonable twenty-three minutes of film references. Maybe youâll think itâs just metalcore with no mathcore in sight, and youâd be right, but (a) thatâs why itâs at the end of this piece and (b) your head will be bobbing so hard you wonât care.
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