The late ’90s and early 2000s birthed a smorgasbord of new styles of extreme music, and saw classic labels like Earache expand their range by signing bands like Bring Me the Horizon. Some of it was good, some of it was bad and some of it was just plain weird, but there was undeniably an uptick in weird, overtly-technical and often silly music that we know today as mathcore. Most heshers are familiar with the classics (Calculating Infinity, Fixation on a Coworker, We Are the Romans, Centralia), so today, we’re looking at five underrated mathcore albums you probably forgot about (or never heard in the first place!).
Shaving the Werewolf – One Way Ticket to Dick City
Certainly the most memorable album name on the list, One Way Ticket to Dick City is, like the rest of Shaving the Werewolf’s discography, extremely fun and extremely underheard. Despite having a Verb-the-Noun name, Oslo’s least grim and trve band deal more in mathy, chaotic hardcore with assorted bits of other extreme metal thrown in. Who could forget that artwork?
One Way Ticket to Dick City by Shaving the Werewolf
An Albatross – Blessphemy…of the Peace Beast Feastgiver and the Bear Warp Kumite
East Coast readers may remember Philly-area outfit An Albatross for their heavy touring schedule and all-over-the-place style of writing. Having put out four albums and a smattering of smaller releases, Blessphemy is where An Albatross found a strong balance, writing slightly longer songs without losing their tech-grind edge.
Curl Up and Die – Unfortunately We’re Not Robots
The Revelation Records catalog is a veritable who’s who of hardcore and metalcore, so it should be no real surprise to find one of their releases on this list. Unfortunately We’re Not Robots is the first album from Las Vegas’ Curl Up and Die, who would crank out a few more releases for Revelation before calling it a day in 2005. Unfortunately combines technical and mathy sensibilities with pummeling breakdowns. Curl Up and Die remained a cult favorite and reunited in 2019, even playing a memorable set at the Decibel Magazine Metal and Beer Pre-Fest in 2021.
Mary Todd – Bone Stock
Mary Todd were a relatively short-lived band from New York, playing a particularly aggressive and chaotic form of grindcore. Named after Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s widow, the song titles make references to historical events (and also Seinfeld). If you’ve ever wondered what Converge might sound like playing grinder songs, have a listen to Bone Stock. Frontman Ashley Levine went on to form Thin, who Decibel has extensively covered.
Bone Stock by Mary Todd
The Boy Will Drown – Fetish
It’s hard to qualify exactly what sounds encompass a genre like mathcore and what separates it from niches like technical death metal, deathcore or hardcore. The Boy Will Drown are one of those examples, releasing a single album on Earache in 2009 before the members apparently left the music scene, until Wax Vessel re-released a compilation of their music last year. Fetish contains bits of all the mentioned genres and hinted at a bright future that could’ve been. At least you can hear the remastered tunes via Bandcamp.
The post Five Underrated Mathcore Albums You Probably Forgot About appeared first on Decibel Magazine.