Post-Hardcore: So, What is it and Where has it been? (Feature)
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Written by Rob Sleigh
The mysterious yet surprisingly popular genre of rock music known by some as post-hardcore took an agreeable turn for the better last week as two of its most lauded saviours, At The Drive-In and Refused, made their long-awaited returns as they were both confirmed for this year’s Coachella Festival in California.
To its many fans, post-hardcore has not only been alive and well for a long time, but it has also provided some of the most evocative and daring music in recent years. To others, however, this strange genre may rarely seem like anything more than a bafflingly loud and shambolic noise played by screaming, under-nourished kids. So, for those of you that don’t count yourselves among the latter, but aren’t quite as far gone as the former, here is a quick history of this strange, often noisy and occasionally wonderful genre by way of explanation.
In short, post-hardcore is not a single, easily-definable type of music, but rather a broad range of sounds all based around the origins of hardcore and punk rock. Why, you may ask, should anyone even bother going to the effort of actually trying to explain it? It’s a good question and you’d be right to ask it. But here goes anyway. Where hardcore music had taken the basis set by punk rock and made it much louder, faster and noisier than anyone could have previously imagined, the original founders of post-hardcore – whoever they may be – opted to take things further still. While American hardcore bands of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s had safely decided to stick to a fairly straightforward racket, their post-hardcore successors did not. Instead, they attempted to create a more technical and – if you like – artistic sound, pushing the boundaries of the genre’s previous incarnation to more expressive, even emotional, levels. As the UK’s post-punk scene began expanding and creeping across the pond, their US cousins quickly followed suit, with the likes of Fugazi and Husker Du – to name but a few - paving the way for a host of other bands and offshoots.
Despite a strong underground following in the US during the 1980s, post-hardcore music never really broke into the mainstream, which is almost certainly how many diehard traditionalists would have liked it to remain. It wasn’t until the early ‘90s and the dawning of Seattle’s grunge movement, itself a late by-product of the hardcore scene, that this type of influence really began to take hold of the public consciousness, within the boundaries of popular rock music. First, however, came something of a rebirth for punk rock, with bands such as Green Day and Offspring scoring hit albums for the first time. Although punk and hardcore had remained fit and healthy in the shadows of the underground gig circuits and independent record labels, it seemed at last that the mainstream music scene had finally had enough of big hair, big egos and big solos and wanted something with a bit more substance – something away from the celebrity lifestyle, to which the day’s young people could actually relate. In a manner that appeared to be history repeating itself, punk rock began to prove popular once more and quickly started to evolve, just as it had done the first time around, eventually making way for a post-hardcore revival that featured the likes of Glassjaw, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, At The Drive-In and Sweden’s Refused.
This, of course, brings us back to the two bands that originally brought us to this subject. At The Drive-In and Refused are two very notable and interesting examples from that first post-hardcore revival for a number of reasons. Most importantly, both bands were seen as two of the most vital members of that movement, even though their significance may not have been fully realised at the time – Refused’s ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ in particular has since been considered one of the most groundbreaking hardcore albums ever. Probably the strangest fact about these two bands, however, is that their third and final albums were also their most applauded and, in both cases, each band would split up within months of their defining album’s release. This makes it all the more exciting to discover that both bands have chosen 2012 to pick up from where they left off.
When At The Drive-In split in 2001, they couldn’t have done it in a more literal fashion, with one half of the group going on to form Sparta and the other to form The Mars Volta. The latter band, which features ATDI’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López, have obviously built on the success of their previous band by releasing five well-received albums in the past 10 years and earning themselves a Grammy Award in the process. But where did it all start? At The Drive-In were originally formed in El Paso, Texas in 1993 by Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Jim Ward. Following the addition of Rodríguez-López in 1996, the band released their debut album ‘Acrobatic Tenement’. During the years that followed, At The Drive-In built up a strong following thanks to their reputation as energetic live performers and, after further line-up changes, went on to release their second album ‘In/Casino/Out’ in 1998. However, it was their third album, 2000’s ‘Relationship of Command’ that brought the band their first taste of worldwide success as well as some of their highest praise. The album included the stunning single ‘One Armed Scissor’ and even featured a vocal contribution from Iggy Pop on the track ‘Rolodex Propaganda’. Sadly though, the album was to be their last, and the band broke up early the following year.
Sweden’s Refused had a very similar story. Despite the attention received following the release of ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’ in 1998, it did little to alter the band’s fate, and Refused split later that year.
Solo artist Frank Turner, himself the former frontman of a post-hardcore band (Million Dead, whose name is derived from a lyric in the Refused song ‘The Apollo Programme was a Hoax’ from ‘The Shape of Punk to Come’), recently explained to the http://www.nme.com/news/frank-turner/61355 NME how At The Drive-In were a huge influence to him: “If post-hardcore is a genre, At The Drive-In are the best post-hardcore band there ever was.”
These days, the likes of The Blackout, Enter Shikari, Funeral For A Friend and Letlive continue to fly the post-hardcore flag, while a host of offshoots such as emo, math-core and melodic hardcore help to keep the genre alive. To many, as previously mentioned, this music has never gone away, but will the return of bands like Refused and At The Drive-In help everyone else to see what they’ve been missing? Here’s hoping.
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Despite a strong underground following in the US during the 1980s, post-hardcore music never really broke into the mainstream, which is almost certainly how many diehard traditionalists would have liked it to remain. It wasn’t until the early ‘90s and the dawning of Seattle’s grunge movement, itself a late by-product of the hardcore scene, that this type of influence really began to take hold of the public consciousness, within the boundaries of popular rock music. First, however, came something of a rebirth for punk rock, with bands such as Green Day and Offspring scoring hit albums for the first time. Although punk and hardcore had remained fit and healthy in the shadows of the underground gig circuits and independent record labels, it seemed at last that the mainstream music scene had finally had enough of big hair, big egos and big solos and wanted something with a bit more substance – something away from the celebrity lifestyle, to which the day’s young people could actually relate. In a manner that appeared to be history repeating itself, punk rock began to prove popular once more and quickly started to evolve, just as it had done the first time around, eventually making way for a post-hardcore revival that featured the likes of Glassjaw, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, At The Drive-In and Sweden’s Refused. 
