Revisiting the 2024 predictions

Calling back to my hot takes on Violent Treatment to see how they held up

At the beginning of 2024, I went on Violent Treatment to discuss some predictions for the upcoming year in hardcore. I felt like the scene was at a bit of an inflection point, with old trends starting to seem dated, and exciting new stuff cresting on the horizon. The fulcrum didn’t swing as fast as I thought it might, but transition has very much been the theme of 2024 so far. It feels like we’re in a cocoon, waiting to see what the latter half of the 2020’s will blossom into. Once that Scarab record drops, it’s all over. Until then, I’ll enjoy this liminal period of excellent demos and mysterious metalcore.

Here’s the episode for reference:

Below are the predictions we made, along with a brief synopsis of how I think they played out.

Democore takeover

This one feels a little disappointing, because I was personally hoping democore would sweep the nation in an undeniable fervor. That might have been an unrealistic expectation to put on an intentionally ephemeral, obscure and backwards facing type of music. Hugo said he didn’t expect any particular band to become the next big thing, while I was positioning to see if anyone would take this sound to the next level like Gel and Spy did with their brand of basement-focused hardcore punk. Hugo was right. You can’t point to any band from this scene and say that they “broke”. That being said, the sheer proliferation of this stuff makes me think the peak is still ahead of us. This time last year, Toronto had one band in this lane (sort of). Now there’s four. Same with Montreal. It will be interesting to see if this sound keeps growing in popularity over the next year, or if something else will take its place.

Another interesting thing to bring up is Eli’s point about how the demo format seems more popular across all genres of hardcore. It feels like an outsized chunk of my favourite releases of 2024 came in small batches from newer or less established bands. Is the full length going the way of the dinosaur? I hope not. At the same time, it almost feels like hardcore thrives in smaller chunks. The proliferation of cassette layout format album art speaks to this trend. This time last year, if I saw a release with cassette art, I could safely assume it sounded like one of three things. Not anymore. I’ve seen that art style on everything from Merauder worship to vegan straight edge in 2024.

Pushback from the corporate interest in hardcore.

It’s hard to gauge this in any holistic sense for a few reasons. The first is that I feel hardcore is slowly splintering back to siloed subgenres with slightly different values. Obviously a kid at the All 4 All/Collateral show is gonna have a different view of things than the kid at the Drug Church/Public Opinion show, and the lines between those scenes seem far more distinct than they did even nine months ago.

The other thing is that hardcore kids, especially younger ones, seem super cognizant of not stepping on toes or saying anything that might bring them grief in the form of creating an overblown online controversy. Young bands could have all sorts of opinions about corporate interests in hardcore but if that’s the case, they aren’t particularly keen on publicly vocalizing them. I could write a whole other article on why that is and the impact it has, but to keep it simple, let’s just say it’s hard to parse most bands’ public personas for where they stand on contentious issues these days.

So let’s read between the lines. On one hand, PBR and Monster Energy have deepened their sponsorship tendrils in terms of how many tours they’re involved in. Bands continue to take cringey corporate opportunities that would have got them crucified a decade ago. On the other hand, the democore wave seems to be spearheaded by younger folks taking an active interest in creating space for DIY. In the past, weird semi-adjacent metalcore bands like Wristmeetrazor would release one decent DIY record, sign to a big label and then completely pivot away from hardcore. Meanwhile the bands on Ephyra in 2024 are either breaking up super fast or staying independent. Even modern beatdown, a genre I would have pointed at nine months ago as being full of tasteless casuals, is starting to embrace rawer, more traditional sounds and recording methods. Kids might not be actively rejecting corporate influence in hardcore, but they’re at least proving they understand the appeal of keeping shit DIY and inaccessible.

Metalcore, deathcore etc.

I feel like we didn’t really make a prediction about metalcore, just kind of acknowledged it was going to get bigger and pontificated about what direction it would take. I mentioned Ephyra briefly in the last paragraph so I won’t beat it into the ground, but it is refreshing to see that scene fiercely champion independence and stay true to themselves. To me that label is like the 2024 version of Lockin’ Out. Of course the music and demeanour are drastically different, but the modus operandi is fairly similar.

Much to the chagrin of Eli and I, who have been making this prediction for years, it doesn’t feel like hardcore wholly accepted MySpace style deathcore in 2024. I know there’s a scene of that stuff out there, but I’m entirely disconnected from it. I expected to see some of those bands crack major fest lineups or get put on package tours, but it hasn’t really happened so far. I will say though, I revisited the first Despised Icon record a few months ago and if you told me I was listening to the hottest new DAZE band, I’d believe you. Maybe we’re still a few years away from Whitechapel worship being acceptable in hardcore spaces, although to be honest, it’s probably better if that never happens.

I was right about one thing, though — I heard way fewer kids on podcast interviews claim they had a punk phase. Instead I heard people admit they went right from Slipknot to Rise Records core to Expire or whatever the hell their entry point to real hardcore was. Thank you for stopping the cap, y’all!

Broken Vow is gonna pop

This was a wild take and you can hear the VT hosts politely try to talk me down from it. Broken Vow did not pop this year. If anything they kind of got put on the back burner while the members pursued other bands. I don’t think they played any major fests. They did some touring at the beginning of the year but they’ve been relatively quiet since. Eli said he would put his money on Anklebiter being more likely to pop, and while that band didn’t reach crazy levels of hype, they did play Tied Down and open one of the Have Heart reunions.

Sound of the 2020’s

For this question, we couldn’t really formulate a concrete answer on what the major sonic through-line of the decade was so far. I don’t think we’re any closer to that answer now than we were nine months ago. Like we sort of discussed, the scene is so big and it feels like so many subgenres are thriving that it’s hard to point at one specific sound as being more prominent than any other. Also, in my opinion 2024 is yet to produce the type of instantly impactful, trendsetting record that shifts the culture in a particular direction (like the Sunami demo, for example), or even a universally lauded release that reaches every corner of the scene (like the End It EP from 2022). I honestly think with the sheer volume of shit happening, we might have to wait another ten years to sort it all out and see what made a real impact before we can confidently say what defined this decade.

Canadian band breakout

World of Pleasure from Calgary played the main fest at Sound and Fury this year, so chalk up a dub for me on this one. That exposure, along with their Weapon X split, could prime them for a breakout if/when they decide to release an LP. Homefront from Edmonton is also a band most American hardcore fans of a certain proclivity know about, although i wouldn’t classify them as a hardcore band. There’s a few other contemporary Canadian acts receiving international recognition, but I think they’ve mostly hit their ceiling either due to the style of music they play or how often they can tour. My whole “next No Warning” prediction might have been a little premature in terms of a Canadian band achieving national spotlight in the US. It’s hard to go from 0-100 in one year, especially considering almost all of our full time bands started 2024 as local or regional phenomenons. Steps are definitely being taken, both in terms of musical quality and visibility through touring, but unless something drastic happens, I doubt we’ll see a Canadian band hit hard with American audiences until 2026.

All in all, I’d say we did alright with the predictions. The only thing I missed from my vantage point, beside the Broken Vow thing, is that maybe things didn’t happen as fast as I thought they would.

Anyways, Hugo from VT is putting out a zine under the Violent Treatment name. Go pick one up and support the burgeoning hardcore media empire.