Screamo is a Hardcore Punk-influenced offshoot of Emo Music which originated in the early-1990s San Diego hardcore scene with bands such as Heroin and Antioch Arrow, who took emo and incorporated far more aggressive and chaotic performances and Harsh Vocals. In the following years, bands like Saetia and Pg. 99 expanded the sound, while other groups such as Orchid and Jeromes Dream mixed it with Grindcore and powerviolence to create an even more extreme variant known as "emoviolence". The genre continued to thrive and develop in underground punk scenes around the world from that point onward, while never even coming close to the mainstream.
Be warned, though: this label is very controversial, with many bands either rejecting it or referring to it as "skramz". Remember, just because a band screams in some of their songs does not automatically make them screamo. The term became frequently misused throughout the Turn of the Millennium to describe Post-Hardcore and Metalcore bands that use Harsh Vocals. However, these styles are vastly different from what the term originally referred to, and describing such bands as screamo is a major Fandom-Enraging Misconception among listeners of traditional screamo.
Bands associated with Screamo include:
- Ampere (Spiritual Successor to Orchid)
- Birds in Row
- Bucket Full of Teeth (also Grindcore and whatever other styles they felt like playing at a given time)
- Circle Takes the Square (also Post-Rock, Progressive Rock, Post-Hardcore, and several other genres)
- City of Caterpillar (mixed with Post-Rock)
- Daïtro
- Envy (mixed with Post-Rock)
- Funeral Diner
- .gif from god (emoviolence, also mathcore)
- Gospel (mixed with Symphonic Progressive Rock)
- Heaven in Her Arms (also Post-Rock and Post-Hardcore)
- Heroin (Ur-Example)
- Hot Cross
- I Hate Myself
- In/Humanity (Trope Namer and possible Ur-Example for emoviolence)
- I Wrote Haikus About Cannibalism In Your Year Book
- Jeromes Dream (emoviolence)
- Kidcrash (also Math Rock)
- Kodan Armada
- La Quiete (emoviolence)
- Loma Prieta (emoviolence)
- Lord Snow (emoviolence)
- Merchant Ships
- Neil Perry
- Off Minor
- Old Gray
- Orchid (Trope Codifier for emoviolence)
- Pg. 99
- Pianos Become the Teeth (up until Keep You, where they became straight-up Emo Music and Post-Rock)
- Portraits of Past
- Portrayal of Guilt (emoviolence)
- Raein
- The Saddest Landscape
- Saetia (the Trope Namer)
- Sed Non Satiata
- Suffocate for Fuck Sake (also Post-Rock and/or Post-Metal)
- Swarrrm (also Grindcore)
- Usurp Synapse (emoviolence)
- Viva Belgrado
- William Bonney
- Wristmeetrazor (emoviolence, also mathcore)
- You and I
Tropes Common to Screamo Bands include:
- Grindcore: Has a close association with this genre and its less metallic sibling genre powerviolence, with some groups such as Orchid, Pg. 99 and especially Swarrrm demonstrating influences from the style.
- Metal Scream: The genre is built on the use of type 3 "screech" vocals.
- Post-Hardcore: Generally associated with the more underground strains of the genre. This makes sense, as original Emocore was a Post-Hardcore subgenre, and Screamo was based upon building further on this aggression into more extreme musical territory.
- Post-Rock: For whatever reason, a lot of bands also fuse this with screamo. Circle Takes the Square, Envy, Heaven in Her Arms, City of Caterpillar, and Suffocate for Fuck Sake provide some excellent examples.
- Sensory Abuse: Bands such as Orchid and Jeromes Dream aim for a chaotic and noisy sound with extremely dissonant chords, pounding drums, throat-shredding screams and extremely treble-heavy and raw production.
- Three Chords and the Truth: Zig-Zagged. Groups like Pg. 99, Orchid and Lord Snow have very short song and album lengths with extremely raw and chaotic production, but incorporate unusual harmonies, dissonant chords and odd time signatures.
- True Art Is Angsty: The building block of several groups.
