Music Sound

Hardcore Emo is a style of music that existed primarily in the early-mid 90s, also known as "chaotic emo". Many Hardcore Emo bands are often misinterpreted as Emo Violence bands. The first hints of the sound began with bands like "Merel" and "Iconoclast" on the East Coast, but it is considered to have primary started in 1991 by the San Diego band Heroin. The sound is most associated with that and other bands on Gravity Records at the time.

Hardcore Emo took the emo sound of bands like Indian Summer, Embassy, Current, Still Life, etc. and made it faster and much more chaotic. Some later bands that followed include Antioch Arrow, Mohinder, Portraits of Past, Swing Kids , Honeywell, Angel Hair, Assfactor 4, Palatka and John Henry West.

By the mid-90s, the scene had largely died out, but French Canadian bands like Union of Uranus and One Eyed God Prophecy kept the style alive to some extent. Today the style is rarely played in its purest form, but it was the primary influence on late 90s/early 00s bands which started the "screamo revival" such as Orchid, Jerome's Dream and Usurp Synapse.

Some would consider this term a bit of a misnomer as the term "emo" itself was originally a shortened form of "emotional hardcore" - so "hardcore emo(tional hardcore)" is redundant.