Mincecore, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Grindcore 1985
Hardcore and death metal compressed into songs under a minute, with continuous blast beats. Napalm Death have a song that lasts one second.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Napalm Death - Scum. Side B, with Bill Steer on guitar, is the essential half.
Napalm Death, Scum (1987) - 3 What you asked about
Mincecore 1990
Deliberately primitive grindcore with blunt political messages and thousands of appearances on split releases.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Agathocles - Theatric Symbolisation of Life. The most accessible way in.
Agathocles, Theatric Symbolisation of Life (1992) - 4 Where to go next
Powerviolence 1987
Hardcore taken to the limit: abrupt tempo shifts, twenty-second songs, blast beats cut with parts as slow as tar.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Assembled from the tree: every genre Mincecore descends from, in order. Mincecore has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.