Screamo 101

What is screamo? How did it come around? Is it a punk genre? Is there a difference between screamo and skramz? Is screamo another term for metalcore and modern pop rock bands?

The short answers: 1) Screamo is an extreme offshoot of emotive hardcore, characterized by its over-the-top aggression and intensity; 2) It has its roots from the D.C. hardcore scene, but for the most part screamo came to fruition thanks to Californian arty hardcore scenes; 3) Yes, it is a punk genre and not a metal one; 4) Screamo and skramz mean the same thing; 5) No, it does not.

The somewhat long answer that nobody really asks for:

1985 was a pivotal moment for hardcore punk – a movement occurred in Washington D.C. as a sociocultural and musical rebellion against “hardcore” itself. A group of D.C. punks got sick of the violence being stricken in their scene and as a response they created their own ethos of punk. “Revolution Summer” is that movement. Although brief, Revolution Summer was crucial as it advocated change within hardcore. This idea was mainly spearheaded by the powerhouse of a label Dischord, with the influential figure in the scene Ian MacKaye being one of the head honchos on the label. Their ethos is taking hardcore towards a different direction in hopes of steering away from the violence and stagnancy within the scene.

One of the major outputs of Revolution Summer and Dischord is Rites of Spring. Their melodic take on hardcore was groundbreaking: their energetic, melodic guitars and emotionally-charged vocal delivery over introspective lyrics were so great, legend has it they were capable of moving the audience with tears in their live shows. They ended up creating “emocore,” a term that was first possibly coined in a Thrasher article, though often derided by Dischord associates (infamously, MacKaye once noted: “Emocore must be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life”). Their 1985 self-titled album is often considered as a landmark for the period, and rightly so.

Emocore can be seen as an abbreviation for emotive or emotional hardcore. Being a sociocultural and musical reaction towards the violent and hostile nature of hardcore, the genre was immensely introspective; emocore bands such as Embrace, Moss Icon, One Last Wish, Gray Matter and Dag Nasty more or less slowed down the tempo of hardcore and injected intricate melody within its framework. (Also, take note of some of the band names like Embrace and compare them to say, like Black Flag or Circle Jerks – the difference is obvious and it’s quite fitting with the direction that Ian MacKaye & co. were heading.)

After Revolution Summer dwindled down, a newer crop of post-hardcore bands began to form. Fugazi, featuring ex-members of Embrace, Rites of Spring and One Last Wish (Joe Lally, Brendan Canty, Guy Picciotto, and of course, Ian MacKaye), were particularly legendary: their flirtation with dub and jazz, as well as playing around with arty musical techniques such as soft and loud dynamics and sonic textures were massively influential. However, other post-hardcore bands such as Drive Like Jehu, Indian Summer, Antioch Arrow, Universal Order of Armageddon, Nation of Ulysses, Allure, Shotmaker and Hoover were highly crucial as well as they pretty much helped giving screamo bands the additional foundation to expand their sound. (Some of these bands are often called as "emo" as if they diverted from traditional emocore.)

If emocore dwells on melodic, mid-tempo songs interlaced with emotionally-charged vocals and lyrics, screamo basically took this over to the limit. While their post-hardcore predecessors typically avoided the trappings of hardcore, screamo bands hailed the latter’s raw, fast and aggressive nature by confiding with chaos to deliver their musically fucked-up expression, all the while preserving post-hardcore’s reverence on musical artistry.

In other words, screamo came to fruition when emocore/emo-inspired bands decided to take massive influences from hardcore punk and combining them with the arty tendencies of post-hardcore. And most importantly, they pushed this to the extreme.

Terminologically, “screamo” is a portmanteau of scream and emo. The “emo” here means “emotive” as in the original emocore style the D.C. bands Rites of Spring, Embrace and Dag Nasty were pioneering, while “scream” obviously refers to the blood-curdling vocals that screamo bands would utilize. However, thanks to rampant misinformation, the term is now typically used almost exclusively – and incorrectly – to refer modern, pop-infused metalcore bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Asking Alexandria, leading fans to use “skramz” as an alternative – and albeit – amusing term for screamo. (“Skramz” is just a remarkably awful way of saying “screams” really.)

Screamo came around in early ‘90s California when labels such as Ebullition, Gravity and Three One G became central hubs for bands to push the boundaries of “hardcore,” with Honeywell, Heroin and Iconoclast releasing their self-titled demos in 1992. What these bands essentially did was playing an aggressive version of emotive hardcore by opting for raw production, up-tempo riffs and harsh vocals, all under an emotive lens. This was quite unique at the time, and shortly after other bands caught on with this sound such as Sleeping Body (Texas), Mohinder, Shroomunion, Swing Kids, Angel Hair, Reach Out, Portraits of Past, One Eyed God Prophecy (Canada) and Union of Uranus (Canada).

Furthermore, aside from California (and parts of North America), France was also crucial for the genre’s development, with a handful amount of screamo bands such as Undone, Jasemine, Ivich, Anomie and Peu être releasing early recordings.

However, as time goes on bands started to become more adventurous, and all of a sudden screamo records started becoming increasingly intense, fragmented, and bleak.

Influenced by Merel, Antioch Arrow, Dead and Gone, SPAZZ, Rorschach and Los Crudos, In/Humanity were one of the first bands that took screamo into a much more aggressive and completely weirdo territory. Their sound is the result of a chaotic mishmash of noise rock, post-hardcore, powerviolence/fastcore and a splash of metalcore (in particularly Rorschach, whose dissonant and off-kilter nature is noticeably influential on the screamo group), which they jokingly called “emoviolence.” (It should be mentioned that this style was originally some sort of a combination of powerviolence and screamo, but eventually it grew out from that and became a catch-all term for hyper, dissonant, and hella abrasive screamo bands regardless if they actually have pure powerviolence influence in their sound.) Other emoviolence bands at the time are End of the Century Party, Eurich and Combatwoundedveteran.

Screamo arguably reached its peak circa 1998 to mid-2000s’ when seminal bands Orchid, Pageninetynine, Reversal of Man, Love Lost but Not Forgotten, Jeromes Dream, City of Caterpillar, Funeral Diner, Ampere, Circle Takes The Square, Saetia, Off Minor, as well as their European brethren La Quite, Raein, Shikari, Daïtro, Tristan Tzara, et cetera, et cetera, released their influential and critically-acclaimed albums, EPs and splits, which paved the way for a lot of modern screamo bands to emulate.

As of currently, screamo has managed to grew into multiple styles, ranging from a post-rock fusion (Funeral Diner, City of Caterpillar, Suis La Lune and Envy – the last two being from Sweden and Japan respectively), the melodic but aggressive “Euro” sound (Tristan Tzara, La Quite, Mihai Edrisch), to even combining the twinkly sound of midwest emo (William Bonney, Merchant Ships, Thisishowitendedintokyo). A metalcore and screamo fusion does exist as well (Carol, Acheborn, Systral – mostly German bands, which interestingly enough also pretty influential on plenty of screamo bands in the '90s), and even prog-rock (Gospel) and jazz and math rock to some extent (Off Minor, Kidcrash), making screamo a versatile genre.

Additional notes

It should be mentioned that Hüsker Dü’s 1984 seminal effort “Zen Arcade” can be considered some sort of proto-emo record. Songs like “Broken Home, Broken Heart”, “Chartered Trips”, and “Pink Turns to Blue” are all insanely melodic and pretty “emo” (though, the whole album is anyway if you take its main theme into consideration), and thus predating Revolution Summer bands by roughly a year or so. I wouldn’t doubt if it was highly influential for D.C. bands though.

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