Part_8

While Queensryche, Fates Warning, and Rush were creating complex music backed by intellectual lyrics which ran the gamut from philosophy to science fiction and beyond, several young bands began what would eventually be known as hardcore; the marriage of heavy metal and punk rock. Hardcore music was somewhat comparable to punk rock in its simple approach and politically minded lyrics, while borrowing a considerable portion of heavy metal's crunch and arrangements. Washington DC and New York City provided the genre with a major portion of its band, among which was the Bad Brains, perhaps the most intense hardcore band ever; blending jazz, reggae, metal, punk, and reckless speed in order to produce bona-fide hardcore albums such as I Against I and Rock For Light. Meanwhile, Los Angeles' Black Flag was setting the world on fire with its "I've heard it all before, don't wanna hear it again!" ethic, Henry Rollins' manic roars, and Greg Ginn's dissonant guitarwork, which made up the band's classic Damaged. At the same time, the Dead Kennedys were to epitomize the righteous political stance of hardcore with Jello Biafra leading the way, while Minor Threat stood against all conformism on its exhilarating live shows. Others like Circle Jerks, D.O.A., Husker Du, Murphy's Law, Reagan Youth, Antidote, Agnostic Front, War Zone, Gorilla Biscuits, the Cro-Mags, Youth of Today, Sick Of It All, Laughing Hyenas, and Life of Agony kept adding fuel to the fire throughout the genre's explosion, which provided yet another sharp contrast to the reigning pop metal scene.
As Black Flag and the Bad Brains were continuously attracting the wariness of police departments all across the United States, several bands decided to take hardcore even further into heavy metal domains, thus creating metalcore, or crossover. Discharge had begun the turmoil on Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing in the early Eighties only to spearhead a movement that would have its brightest moments throughout the rest of the decade. D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) would release albums like Crossover and Definition, while Corrosion of Conformity created Eye For an Eye and Animosity, both bands attracting the attention of hardcore and heavy metal fans only to pave the way for S.O.D (Stormtroopers of Death). The ironically hilarious Speak English Or Die is perhaps the album most representative of crossover yet. Featuring singer Billy Milano along with Anthrax and ex-Nuclear Assault members, S.O.D. was arguably the greatest metalcore band of all times, and a reunion was highly requested for years until the band recently released its comeback Bigger than the Devil. Crossover, however, has yet to reach the commercial heights it attained during the Eighties, while hardcore is still somewhat prominent through bands like Fugazi, the Jesus Lizard, Madball, and Biohazard.
During the last half of the Eighties, yet another branch of heavy metal began to rise out from the underground into commercial circles. Industrial metal, which's most important feature was the use of electronic instruments and sounds such as drum machines and synthesizers, had been around since the early Eighties with outfits like the innovative and legendary the Swans and Killing Joke. But it evolved much quicker through the last half of the decade through the efforts of bands like Skinny Puppy, Controlled Bleeding (which would later produce Skin Chamber), the heavy and aggressive KMFDM (Kein Mehrheit fie Mitleid), Cop Shoot Cop, and Godflesh, all remaining often within a dark musical spectrum. The final breakthrough, however, came about with Al Jourgensen's Ministry, which after outstanding albums like Twitch and The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste came around full circle on Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. The previously released "Jesus Built My Hotrod" had earned considerable video rotation, and songs like "Just One Fix" helped maintain the initial momentum of industrial metal.