Linda Leseman*Everything You Wanted to Know About Metal but Were Afraid to Ask
*Top Five Best Post-Hardcore Records
What is “brocore,” you ask? Well, brocore bands are usually white guys wearing baggy clothing and, often, gauged earrings. Their screamed lyrics are aggressive or brooding, and they tend to pace, stage-dive, and fight with audience members. In rare cases they set each other on fire.
The music itself is derivative; Pantera is emulated frequently. Somehow, as Urban Dictionary explains, “they are fully convinced they are playing hardcore.” Still, their tunes are not without their charms, if you're in a certain mood. Here, then, are the top five brocore bands.
5. Papa Roach
Papa Roach is what happens when nu metal goes emo — or, when sensitive dudes shout their feelings. Twelve years ago, frontman Jacoby Shaddix rapped-sang about his suicidal “Last Resort” in the band's breakout hit. But it's the video that's brocore gold. Check out Shaddix's macho dance moves as he bounces around the stage surrounded by depressed teens. He could've been a Backstreet Boy.
4. Disturbed
Disturbed lead singer David Draiman claims his band plays classic metal in the mold of Sabbath and, yes, Pantera, but they don't sound much like them. Disturbed has more in common stylistically with alternative rock than with heavy metal. In fact, paying homage to great influences that are unrecognizable in one's own music is a hallmark of brocore. Not that anyone other than dorks like us care.
3. Limp Bizkit
If brocore had an official poster boy, it would be Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst. Coarse and controversial, with his oft-backwards baseball cap, Durst is the quintessential dudebro, the guy who “tries to act as extreme (or XTREME, as he would say) as possible…” Limp Bizkit's rap-rock records indeed saw XTREME sales, but when Durst claimed to have gotten “nookie” from Christina Aguilera — which she refuted — he solidified his standing in the dudebro hall of fame.
See also: Fuck Guilty Pleasures: Limp Bizkit Had An Amazing Run
2. Slipknot
Slipknot take themselves very seriously. Wearing masks and costumes and assuming numerical aliases (like “#0”) has the effect of both expressing and suppressing their identities. “I came up with wearing the mask because I didn't want people to see my real pain,” says drummer Shawn Crahan on the TV documentary series Metal Evolution. (In the background looms his bass drum, which has the female reproductive system painted on it.) “I wanted to share my own fear behind the mask,” he adds. “That way you, the fan, could adjust to the symbolism of what I represented…the clown.” Hardcore? Nope — brocore.
See also: Slipknot's Clown On His Exit Strategy
1. Lamb of God
Lamb of God craft admirably technical music. But it's their offstage antics that make them brocore. Watch the Walk With Me In Hell tour DVD to understand; there's the time singer Randy Blythe nearly severs his toe with a machete, and the infamous drunken bus brawl. And now Blythe is facing charges of manslaughter in the Czech Republic, for having allegedly shoved a fan off the stage who later died of a brain hemorrhage. (The band claims Blythe is innocent.) Getting stuck in a European jail while your group solicits money on Facebook sounds strange considering their last album debuted at number three. It's time for these bros to grow up.
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