Metal Posted Weekly

Week 10

Hello everyone, Xalldin here with a guest weekly from longtime MW associate Atlas, hope you enjoy.
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Hello all. Long time no see! Today I have two bands foundational to mathcore as a whole, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
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(Mathcore)

Country: United States

Albums:
Deadguy:

• Fixation on a Co-Worker (1995)
  
• Near-Death Travel Services (2025)

Kiss It Goodbye:

• She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not (1997)

I’m including two bands in this feature because they are both a product of musicians Tim Singer and Keith Huckins, two musicians that are in part responsible for the explosion of mathcore and metalcore across the East Coast of the United States in the 90s.

The history of these bands start with a band called Rorschach, a hardcore punk band formed in 1989 featuring Keith Huckins, Andrew Gormley, and Thom Rusnak. Shortly after Rorschach released their second album, Protestant, Keith left the band to pursue other projects. Rorschach was unable to continue without him.

Deadguy came into the scene in 1994, playing underground basement shows in Cook College (now part of Rutgers University), and heavily influencing the sound of 90s metalcore bands. They broke up in 1997 mid-tour, with Keith Huckins, Tim Singer, and Andrew Gormley moving to Seattle to form Kiss It Goodbye.

30 years after their legendary Fixation on a Co-Worker album, they reformed and began working on their second album. I was skeptical at first, bands with large breaks in their career tend to result with a disappointing project, but I was completely blown away. Despite being older, they still have the same raw, aggressive sound that I love from their debut. All three of these albums are top tier.

Die With Your Mask On (Fixation on a Co-Worker)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_JggmLaS5E

Pins And Needles (Fixation on a Co-Worker)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdaZldcaD8Q

Wax Princess (Near-Death Travel Services)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AuSQWOT1Gk

Helvetica (She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcwA8TnqsDw
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(Mathcore / Jazz)

Country: United States

Albums:

• Surrealistic Madness (1995)
  
• Beyond Reasonable Doubt (1997)
  
• The Process of Self-Development (1999)
  
• 300 Percent Density (2001)
  
• The C.O.M.A. Imprint (2002)
  
• What Doesn’t Kill You… (2004)
  
• Kiss The Lie (2008)
  
• While They Were Sleeping (2016)

Formed in the second wave of New York Hardcore, Candiria was another pioneering act for the growing metalcore scene on the East Coast. Most of the members of this band were jazz students who all shared a love for metal, and they decided to mix their interests to create one of the most unique sounding mathcore bands in the scene. While Candiria never had the same amount of notoriety as other bands in the scene, their influence can definitely be heard in acts that came after them.

Over time, they began to use less of the jazz elements in their music, picking up a more groovy metal sound by the time they release The C.O.M.A. Imprint. Shortly after releasing that album, they suffered a major crash during a tour in which all of the members were thrown out of their tour van and hospitalized. All of this culminated into what I believe is their best album, What Doesn’t Kill You… which features their totaled tour van on the album cover.

Personally, I believe their music falls off hard after that release, I don’t really care for their later albums. But their impact on metal can be seen, the drummer Kenneth Schalk was even a featured drummer on Between the Buried And Me’s song Fix The Error off of Colors II.

Dead Bury The Dead (What Doesn’t Kill You…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttc4LbPK9io

Paradigm Shift (Beyond Reasonable Doubt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwYH7X_Q3-w

Constant Velocity Is As Natural As Being at Rest (300 Percent Density)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0JwhxB2Lc0
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Thank you for reading. I hope you find these bands to be as interesting as I do. Without them, there would be no Dillinger Escape Plan, no Between the Buried and Me, and no Every Time I Die.

-Atlas