2000s Hardcore Week has been a lot of work to put together, but it's definitely been fun and rearding. I kicked off the celebration by asking musicians from the scene what their favorite hardcore records were from that decade, and you can check out that list here.
Since I had so many entries, I decided to break up the feature in two parts. Part 2 is featured below.
Long live hardcore!
P.S. I allowed Todd Jones to (kinda) cheat below. He earned it after the hardcore majesty that is A Life Less Plagued.
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Todd Jones (Nails, Carry On, Terror)
Picking a favorite recording of the 2000-2009 era is no easy task for me. I need to first make a list of the records I still connect with the most from that time period:
Converge, You Fail Me
Tragedy, Tragedy
Rise and Fall, Into Oblivion
Violent Minds, Eyes of Death
Framtid, Under the Ashes
Inepsy, Rock N Roll Babylon
Warcry, Deprogram
Lights Out, Overload
My pick is No Warning Ill Blood as my favorite record of the 2000-2009 era. Not to say it's better than any of the records I listed above, but I think I have the most sentimental attachment to it out of all.
There's one word that sums up Ill Blood: "attitude." No Warning was so focused on putting their name on map with this record and letting folks know what time it was. Ben's vocal inflections and lyrics have so much attitude which matches perfectly with Jordo and Delong's riffs and song structures.
Be a good person...but become an asshole when you listen to Ill Blood because that's what this record does to me.
Aram Arslanian (Change, Betrayed, REACT! Records)
Carry On, Roll with the Punches
When this EP came out it blew my mind. The song writing was awesome, the lyrics were unapologetic, and the attitude was undeniable.
From the moment those four hi-hats hits and the “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” entered the group consciousness, Carry On became a rally point for West Coast Straight Edge, and lit a fire for us all.
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Taylor Young (God’s Hate, Twitching Tongues)
Death Threat, Peace & Security
I’m gonna cheat and put two: Death Threat - Peace & Security tied with Terror - Lowest of the Low.
I think these are two of the best examples of pure hardcore music in that decade, while also being super-easy to listen to.
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Mike Wasylenko (Never Ending Game)
E.Town Concrete, The Renaissance
As a huge fan of Time 2 Shine, this record is still number one in their discography for me. The dynamic of the songs was something that really stuck with me, the album sequence is perfect. “So Many Nights” is just an absolute monster of a track and it fits the albums so well even with it being so different.
This was a huge influence to me when writing for Never Ending Game: “Goin Thru Some Things," “One of Those Nights," “Stolen Life,” and “Halo & Wings.” I take a heavy influence musically from this record, and the band in general.
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Sofia (Divine Sentence)
Have Heart, The Things We Carry
That's a tough one but I gotta go with Have Heart - The Things We Carry. The message of this album remains relevant, as we still live in a world that wears us down. We all need motivational songs when life becomes overwhelming. Straight Edge!
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Tom Damiano (Trail of Lies)
Terror, One With the Underdogs
I remember listening to the CD for the first time when I was getting off the bus to school and being blown away. It is so aggressive and catchy. To this day, One with the Underdogs is still one of my top hardcore records of all time.
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Andre (Rabbit)
Some Girls, Heaven’s Pregnant Teens
My teen years in a blender: the Locust + American Nightmare + the Blood Brothers.
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Donny Arthur (Spaced, Final Declaration)
Righteous Jam, Rage of Discipline
This era of hardcore is particularly special to me as it was a time of major discovery for me with the genre. Classics like Terror’s One with the Underdogs, Haymaker by Throwdown, and All Time Low by Know the Score were the soundtrack of the times for me.
It's damn near impossible to pick one but I’m gonna go with Rage of Discipline by Righteous Jams. It’s a record I find myself going back to all the time. Sing-along after sing-along riff after riff this one rocks front to back. This record has definitely been a big influence for me and Spaced.
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Paul Dove (Missing Link)
100 Demons, In the Eyes of the Lord
Aside from [100 Demons singer] Bruce LePage being a close friend of the band, this record's lyrical content and writing alongside with some of the best mix of hardcore and metal. It’s the perfect record, absolutely no skips.
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Blake Hall (Praise)
Foundation, Hang Your Head
It's heavy, high energy, and vulnerable all at the same time.
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Geoff (Dry Socket)
Paint It Black, CVA
This album has always stood out as pure aggression, offering sonically interesting fast hardcore while still having political and emotionally insightful lyrics.
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Dylan Tobia (Restraining Order)
Formaldehyde Junkies, ...Are A Total Wreck
I’m gonna pick Formaldehyde Junkies' ...Are a Total Wreck. This EP is fast, aggressive, and the recording makes it sounds like it’s from the early '80s.
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Bjorn Dossche (Wrong Man, Rise and Fall)
Dead Stop, Done With You
Belgium has a long tradition of producing quality hardcore / punk of all kinds. Going all the way to The Kids in the late '70s, through the mid-'90s, metallic hardcore boom, to today. In the early '00s, however, things were in a bit of a lull. A lot of us were burnt on the metal-leaning sound that had dominated the country for a long time (in retrospect, 5-6 years isn’t all that long, but if felt long at the time).
A few heads that felt that exact way, started Dead Stop. Named after a Negative Approach song, and taking cues from classic early '80s DC, Boston, Midwest, and NYHC, Dead Stop brought hardcore punk back to the forefront. Slowly but surely, with an excellent demo, EP and furious live sets, they converted more and more people and by the time Done With You came out, the energy was real.
Done With You perfectly delivered when it had to. It surpassed their earlier output in terms of songwriting, dynamics, and aggression, and it sounded like a lost relic from the Dischord and Touch & Go heydays. A lot of us had grown up loving the classics of that long-gone era and the mystery that surrounded it all, but now we had Dead Stop that made it all palpable and reachable.
Moreover, the band managed to draw in all kinds of people; from younger straight edge hardcore enthusiasts, to jaded older folks, and from the skinheads we’d never dared to talked to, to the drunk punks that you’d find on the floor of venues like The Pits. Done With You set the tone for a handful of years in which hardcore in Belgium was truly on another level and I’ll forever be grateful for that.
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Rob Foster (Juice)
Ill Blood, No Warning
Ill Blood was ahead of its time. There’s no songs you feel you need to skip. The album is Canada’s pride and joy: homegrown hardcore that triumphs against the odds.
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Laurent Lebec (Pelican)
Iron Age, The Sleeping Eye
The Sleeping Eye by Iron Age is all-timer for me. While I’ll always have my hardcore and crossover favorites from when I was a kid, for me this was a now band that just did everything right ... the riffs, the breakdowns, the sheer ferocity ... while existing with a toe in psychedelia as well.
It didn’t hurt that it sounded huge but still organic.
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Joe “Hardcore” McKay (Shattered Realm, Punishment, This Is Hardcore)
Terror, One with the Underdogs
In the year 2000, I turned 20 and started touring with my own band Punishment. In a nearly impossible task of choosing one and one only, I must go with Terror's One with the Underdogs.
From the demo in 2002, to this generation-defining LP, it is the purest hardcore record of that time and plausibly in the last 20 years since its release.
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Matt Rudzinski (Killwhitneydead, Tribunal Records)
Killswitch Engage, Alive or Just Breathing
For me, and I would assume everyone out there reading, this album was an absolute game changer. It had it all, hook-filled choruses, perfectly-placed pinched harmonics, monster breakdowns and riffs for days.
The debut was a great album, but this one just raised the bar for everyone out there.
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Denis Halilovic (Never Ending Game)
Madball, Hold It Down
The first decade of the new millennium gave us new bands and records that could already be called classics today, especially since a large number of bands that laid the groundwork in the ‘90s weren’t creating memorable bodies of work into the 2000s. To me, Madball’s Hold It Down is a true outlier, and has a lasting impact that not only shaped the band as we know them today, but in some ways the entire scene around them.
The seeming obsession with newness in hardcore means you rarely see a band stay around long enough to release a 4th LP—bands either run out of things to say or the scene is just no longer interested in what they’re saying. So the chances of that 4th record being true to the band or it resonating with people is rarely ever seen.
But in 2000, Madball showed they still had a lot to say. The lyrics and cadences delivered in Freddy’s new tone of voice are catchy, memorable, and most importantly are delivering a true and honest message that only someone whose life has been shaped by hardcore could offer.
Nowadays, the style of writing and structure of the songs on this record might seem ubiquitous, but when you go back and listen to other records of the era, there were very few bands able to push the sound of NYHC like Madball did on Hold It Down.
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Javier Van Huss (Back to Godhead, Where It Went podcast)
Cold World, Dedicated to Babies Who Came Feet First
When I was asked to talk about my favorite 2000s hardcore, I actually had a tough time. Early 2000s were a blur for me, and I wasn't super interested in much of the hardcore happening, especially local. A few things grabbed me then and still resonate now, like Found Dead Hanging's Dulling Occum's Razor, the Deadwater Drowning EP, Hatebreed Persevarace, and retroactively, Violence Violence by Ceremony.
But two records will have to share the top spot for me, and Cold World "Dedicated to Babies Who Came Feet First and American Nightmare Background Music.
That AN record really paved the way for a lot of hardcore that came after it. It had so much depth and emotion that people who liked "tradtional hardcore" but didn't feel like they fit in with the Posi Numbers crowd could relate to.
I have said repeatedly that I believe that Cold World record is one of, if not the most, innovative and original hardcore albums ever. Both are great book ends to an awkward, confusing, and emotional decade.
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Anchit Chhabra (Hold My Own, Sector, MH Chaos)
Every record that Terror put out in the 2000s
It’s hard for me to pick only one: The Damned, The Shamed, Always the Hard Way, One with the Underdogs, and Lowest of the Low. Unreal stretch of records leading up to the masterpiece that is Keepers of the Faith in 2010.
All of those records are highly formative for me getting into hardcore and understanding what hardcore truly is. They all have songs that are near and dear to my heart and take me back to a time and place in my life.
The first time I saw Terror was at Gotham City Metal Fest in Mokena, Illinois on April 11, 2009. Watching that set changed my life. It was unlike anything I’ve experienced leading up to that point. I got hooked and all four of those records I mentioned from the 2000s were a part of my life ever since.
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Eva Hall (Power Alone, No Plan)
Maroon, Antagonist
The urgency and frustration in the lyrics was so relatable to me at that time: mainly about capitalism destroying the planet, and the cruel slaughter of creatures for the meat industry.
The music is intense, and every song has riffs and riffs and riffs! I remember my old band in 2003 would listen to this on the way to practice and just get pumped!
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Avrinder Dhillon (Poisoned Seeds, Hollow Ground)
Carry On, A Life Less Plagued
I saw them a few times in Seattle around this time. Flawless live sets. I got to hear an advanced copy of this record, and I was was floored by the songs, the lyrics, the production.
It was, and is still perfect. A Life Once Plagued has aged really well. Our friend Lucas McFadden played drums on this album, he killed it!
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Anthony Sylvester (GEL)
No Warning, Ill Blood
I don’t think I can pick up a guitar without playing the intro to "Behind These Walls."
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Zack Nelson (Retaliate, 185 Miles South podcast)
Iron Age, Constant Struggle
I remember being taken aback a bit at first when the dudes from Far From Breaking ditched the pos-tops and X'd fists to go full on rocker. What they created though is truly one of the best crossover records of all time.
It's less thrash metal played by hardcore kids and more a true walking of the line between hardcore punk and early '80s metal. 18 years later, it still sounds as fresh as ever and could slide straight in with other bands rocking that post-Age of Quarrel-style: Ekulu, Big Cheese, etc.
RIP Wade Allison
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Dave Kuhlman (Last Gasp)
Down to Nothing, The Most
This record changed the way I looked at song writing as a whole. The riffs were some of the craziest I’d heard at that time. This record is definitely a Top 5 for me.
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Flint Beard (Life Force)
Have Heart, The Things We Carry
My personal favorite from the 2000s would easily be Have Heart’s The Things We Carry. It’s a record that I think immediately joined the pantheon of releases through time that define exactly what hardcore is and should be.
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James Lawson (Bad Beat, Tied Down Fest)
Righteous Jams, Rage of Discipline
It is a record I find myself listening to multiple times a week. It is just a classic for me.
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Chris Bavaria (Praise)
Tragedy, Tragedy
This album defined a sub genre, got hardcore kids into crust, and Tragedy was one of the sickest and loudest live bands of the era.
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Keith Freeman (Restraining Order)
Fucked Up, Hidden World
I guess I’ll pick Fucked Up - Hidden World. Most impactful for me is probably Have Heart - The Things We Carry but it’s not what I’m jamming these days. Hidden World is timeless for me.
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Tyler Norris (Foreign Hands)
Integrity, To Die For
To anyone reading this who has never listened to this record/band, come back to this after you've done so. Integrity has that distinct apocalyptic sound that I'm super drawn to, and I personally feel like To Die For does it justice the best out of the rest of their discography.
It definitely leans more into heavy metal but it's still has hard ass riffs and mosh parts; It's as raw as hardcore can get. Pairing that with the Jacob Bannon album art is a crazy perfect combo that really sets the mood of the record.
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Mac Miller (Cosmic Joke)
Kid Dynamite, Shorter, Faster, Louder
The perfect balance of sweet melodies, biting aggression, and disgusting/incredible bass tone. This record was instrumental in transitionbig my tastes from punk to hardcore at a young age.
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Anthony Dye (Praise)
Trapped Under Ice, Stay Cold
Stay Cold is not just one of the best hardcore records of the decade, to me it’s one of the best hardcore 7”s of all time. It was the first “hard” record that ever appealed to me
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Lumpy (DAZE, King Nine, Balmora)
Death Threat, Peace & Security
Connecticut Hardcore at its finest, a perfect record through and through.
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Nick Worthington (Dead Swans, Still In Love)
Carry On, A Life Less Plagued
The feeling that record gives me to this day is pretty much irreplaceable. Lyrically and musically, it’s the perfect hardcore record.
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Jeremy Gardiner (HEAVYHEX)
No Warning, Ill Blood
Ill Blood because it made me feel like it was ok not to please everyone, it was ok to cut ties with people who didn’t have my best intentions in mind and at the time I needed to hear that."
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José Saxlund (Abhinanda, Desperate Fight Records)
Have Heart, Songs to Scream at the Sun
Of course, even though its a hard question to answer, I guess my answer is Have Heart's Songs to Scream at the Sun.
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Casey Shaw (Apex Predator)
Terror, One with the Underdogs
This record changed my life and shaped the way I look at hardcore. I used to give CDs of it to younger kids having a hard time hoping it would guide them to the path of hc. Easily the one record I’ve listened to the most in my life besides Ludacris’ Word of Mouf.
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Chuck Minx (Foreign Hands)
No Warning, Ill Blood
For me, it was a toss-up between Ill Blood and Secrets of the World. TUI’s "Believe" was the first modern hardcore video I ever saw. I first heard “Short Fuse” on the Hellfest DVD. I loved the music, but the energy and attitude really drew me in.
After deep diving more into their catalog, I could definitely see how TUI took influence from No Warning and that Secrets of the World was a culmination of '00s hardcore as a whole.
However, Ill Blood was the record that kickstarted the decade. They took the best elements of '90s hardcore and expanded on them to create a now timeless sound that would be frequently imitated throughout the 2000s and even to the present day.
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Michael Bingham (Spiritual Cramp, Spice)
Tragedy, Vengeance
The definitive stadium crust album. You never heard big drums like this before. Good live too!
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Will Kaelin (Never Ending Game)
Trapped Under Ice, Secrets of the World
This was the LP all my boys in Grand Rapids were still bumping when I started hanging around. I didn’t really start going to hardcore shows until about 2011, when I was in high school, as I’m the baby of Never Ending Game, so a lot of the shit I was into at the time came out after 2009.
This LP definitely shaped and defined how I play today. The intro riff in "See God" and the Slayer/Merauder type pit in "Too True Forever," changed how I write hardcore music. Once I heard TUI, Cruel Hand, Terror, etc., I needed to know what influenced them, which in turn led to many long nights searching blogspots and Soulseek for the '90s stuff that’s also influenced how I play.
I wish I coulda been around during the era before this LP with Stay Cold and the demo out, as I mostly fuckin hate all the melodic shit that was poppin’ during that era and TUI brought a sound that easily has the most influence on what’s popular today.
10/10 record with awesome production and classic lyrics. "See God" pit is Mt Rushmore.
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Tagged: 2000s hardcore week
