State Faults

The Wave is a loosely defined cluster of American post-hardcore/emo bands that surged in the early 2010s as emo-pop’s mainstream moment faded. The name was a tongue‑in‑cheek scene tag that stuck in press coverage, but it points to a real overlap in sound, ethos, and touring networks. Musically, The Wave fuses the urgency of 1990s post‑hardcore and screamo with confessional, literate lyric writing associated with emo. Expect shouted or half‑sung/half‑spoken vocals, dynamic quiet‑loud builds, intricate but driving drums, and guitar textures that shift between glassy clean arpeggios and overdriven, emotive climaxes. The songs often emphasize catharsis, narrative detail, and community-minded DIY presentation.

Blackened screamo is a hybrid of skramz-era screamo and second‑wave black metal aesthetics. It blends the genre’s raw, emotionally charged vocals and desperate dynamic surges with tremolo‑picked guitar figures, blast beats, and an enveloping, cold atmosphere. Typical songs pivot between blistering speed and mournful, reverb‑drenched expanses. The harmony favors minor keys, dissonant clusters, and chromatic movement, while production often embraces intentional abrasion—lo‑fi edges, room bleed, and cavernous ambience—to intensify the sense of urgency and bleakness. Lyrically, blackened screamo carries screamo’s confessional, existential, and socially critical core, but frames it with black metal’s desolate, sometimes apocalyptic tone. The result is a cathartic, high‑intensity style that feels both immediate and vast.

Screamo is an emotionally charged offshoot of emo and hardcore punk characterized by cathartic, screamed vocals, dynamic extremes, and a blend of melody with discordance. Songs often move rapidly between fragile, clean passages and explosive, chaotic climaxes, emphasizing tension-and-release. Guitars favor octave runs, tremolo-picked melodies, and dissonant chord voicings, while drums switch from driving d-beats to blast beats and spacious half-time drops. Lyrics are typically confessional, poetic, and socially aware, delivered with a visceral intensity that foregrounds vulnerability and urgency. Early recordings embraced raw, DIY production and intimate, basement-show energy; later waves incorporated post-rock atmospherics and more expansive songwriting.

Mathcore is an extreme offshoot of metalcore and hardcore punk characterized by rapid-fire shifts in meter, tempo, and texture. It emphasizes dissonant, angular riffing; complex, polymetric drum patterns; and whirlwind song structures that often feel deliberately chaotic. The genre fuses the precision and rhythmic gamesmanship of math rock with the aggression of hardcore and the density of extreme metal. Songs routinely feature sudden stops, blast beats, start–stop riffing, odd time signatures, and atonal or chromatic harmonies, producing a sound that is tense, volatile, and cathartic.

Chaotic hardcore is an extreme strain of hardcore punk defined by rapid tempo shifts, dissonant riffing, and a deliberately unstable, “out of control” song structure. It typically combines hardcore’s speed and confrontation with the technical abruptness of mathcore and the abrasive noise of powerviolence/noise rock, creating short, explosive songs that often pivot without warning. Vocals are usually screamed, barked, or shrieked, and production often emphasizes raw impact: loud drums, jagged guitars, and a dense, clipped mix that makes the music feel physically overwhelming.

Skramz is the grassroots, early form of screamo that emerged from DIY hardcore and emo scenes in the mid‑to‑late 1990s. Raw, cathartic vocals, breakneck dynamics, and fragile clean passages collide to create songs that feel intimate and volatile at once. Hallmarks include tense quiet‑loud arcs, dissonant chord voicings, trebly guitar tones that flicker between arpeggios and frantic strumming, and highly expressive, often confessional lyrics. Unlike more polished, post‑2000s screamo variants, skramz foregrounds unfiltered emotion, community ethics, and a live‑in‑the‑room sound.