4 Underrated Bands Who Helped Define the 90s Powerviolence Scene

Powerviolence is growing on me, I must admit. Most of the time I have no clue what they’re saying, but that doesn’t matter because the vibes are unmatched. Powerviolence started coming into prominence in the late 80s and 90s, meshing several different offshoots of hardcore punk. This led to noisecore, thrash, grindcore, and basically anything else that featured fast guitars and guttural vocals. The powerviolence scene of the 90s was host to many beloved bands like Spazz, Infest, and Assück. But there are many who were underrated in their time who put out stellar albums. Here are my picks from that era.

Stapled Shut

Stapled Shut was a hardcore powerviolence band formed around 1991 in California (although apparently there’s also a nu-metal Stapled Shut from Ohio; this isn’t about them). Their 1996 album L.A. Times is highly regarded among longtime fans for its grit and mess, its unapologetic sludge. While scrolling through the YouTube comments under the full album, I caught one that praised the “guttural bullshit” of the vocals. “If you’re gonna do the easiest thing in a band, you better try to make it harder by making it painful,” they added.

Monster X

Monster X emerged in the mid-90s from Albany, New York, enmeshing themselves in the powerviolence scene by leaning more into the guttural nature of grindcore. They often released split albums with other defining powerviolence bands of the time like Spazz and Capitalist Casualties. In 2003, their entire discography was compiled into a compilation titled Indoctrination. I also scrolled through the YouTube comments for this album and was delighted by one that said, “I’ve had ‘Hand of Power’ stuck in my head for 20 years and I finally figured out where it came from.” Which is, of course, from the 1997 Monster X/Spazz split. You learn something new every day.

Sore Throat

Hailing from the U.K., Sore Throat formed in 1987 and had several releases that helped to shape powerviolence and, specifically, crust punk and noisecore. Allegedly, they were one of the earliest pioneers of noisecore, and the title of their 1989 album Never Mind The Napalm Here’s Sore Throat was a Sex Pistols-esque dig at their contemporaries Napalm Death. In contrast to the other bands mentioned here, Sore Throat didn’t jive with guttural vocals. Instead, they leaned more hardcore punk but with a fast, thrashy foundation.

Hellnation

Hellnation formed in 1988 in Kentucky, and lasted the longest out of the previous three on this list, disbanding around 2010. In that time, they released several albums, splits, and EPs, showcasing brisk hardcore riffs and a particular sharpness to the vocals. It’s less sludge than Stapled Shut or Monster X, but not as lyrically decipherable as Sore Throat. Hellnation falls somewhere between hardcore punk and powerviolence, bridging gaps that I wasn’t aware needed to be bridged. Their 1999 album Cheerleaders For Imperialism highlights this mesh of styles extremely well. It’s worth the listen if you’re into fast guitars that will leave your head spinning.

Photo via YouTube/Hellnation