I feel like grindcore is one of the least defined genres.

Take the big three early grind bands.
Napalm
Repulsion
Extreme Noise Terror

None of these bands sound the same.

And now, there’s still no definite idea of grind.

It's like Gothic Metal. All of the major exponents sound little like each other yet there's some elements they share, like the imagery, atmosphere and general vibe to the music.

Back in 1988/1990 we had no issues whatsoever identifying grindcore from other genres and subgenres.
BTW E.N.T., back then, not being a grindcore band -at all - but a pure crustcore band btw

It's simple: go play all eighties releases, I stress eighties, by the following bands:
Napalm Death, Agathocles, Fear Of God (the Swiss band), and the debut albums by Carcass and O.L.D.
That is your basis. Then you will start to notice many other bands leaning more to other genres and subgenres.
For instance some would also name Heresy (UK) as one whereas others would call them ultrafast thrashcore

This is so true and some really great advice that could in essence be applied to a bunch of genres.
I would add Terrorizer to the recommended listening, especially the demos. Even Bolt Throwers early stuff was lumped into the grindcore genre. Brutal Truths first couple of albums, tho from the 90's, are essential too.

I never understood what "mincecore' is. It sounds just like regular grindcore.

Coined by Agathocles to distance themselves from the lyrical 'fantasy' fringes of grindcore. Mincecore says something about the lyrical content, not the sound.



You're right, Terrorizer should be added.


Yeah that was mostly because they came from that UK crusty/fastcore scene at the time but their demos and debut, although also being very crustcore laden, hardly were grindcore-ish. Their 'blastbeats' weren't really blastbeat by eighties standards. I love In Battle, gonna play it again today

Neither do the old death metal bands or the old black metal bands, I'm not sure this is a very good critique

I agree, tho I think grind is definitely more defined than gothic metal, gothic is kinda a particular flavor of several of the subgenres id argue,

And the "Most Useless Thread of the Year" award goes to

That would be threads where no one even bothers to reply, like for instance:
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=139332
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=139324
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=139631
https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=139711

Etcetera etcetera

Depends on the perspective. From a death metal point of view? From a punk/hardcore point of view? From a noisecore point of view? I can understand how that makes it undefined and vague. Not really all that unusual, though. You can say that about many styles of music.

There really are far too many sub genres

I used to argue heavily for the advancement of our language, belligerently advocating for the need of more exact terms. I was wrong. WRONG. I didn't foresee how ridiculous it would become. It hasn't helped anything. People haphazardly throw around terms like they were just brained by masonry. All it has done is muddy the waters and render all these "more precise" terms useless. I used to be able to read reviews, or watch discussions, and understand the terms and find them helpful, which was the crux of my argument all along. No longer. I now read the same things and just think, "What a bunch of pretentious wankers." Give me a couple similar bands to give me an idea, and I can better work with that than all these dippy subgenres.

Why some guys say that bands like Nasum or Nails aren't grind or are "fake grind"? I really don't know the difference i thought they sound like grindcore.

I'm no big grinder but I'd imagine the message of it being inherently anti corporate from the beginning is probably enough to make the old guard and people who buy into the grind message to look at bands like that as exceptionally commercial or disingenuous

Don't know either band musically but I've come across nails and I even got that impression that it was kinda relapse records hip cool metal type of thing, I have no reason to think it but I'm also not gonna go investigate idc

I firmly believe the more dense the subgenre name people call something, the less remarkable it probably actually is, I think people overcompensate for mediocrity with grand ways of describing shit lest you discover there isn't anything at all

Floridian Death Metal sounds different than NYDM, sounds different than Stockholm death metal sounds different than Finnish Death, Norwegian etc etc.

Grindcore has similar geographical and evolutionary changes over the years. Expecting English bands to sound similar to American bands under the same umbrella when there’s no internet and fair amount of isolation and localization of the scenes to develop in their own way.

Exactly! Genres can be broad but that doesn't mean they're not defined. Grindcore definitely is well defined. Then there's the "lyrics talk about shit so it's shitcore" nonsense, but this is another question.



Not AT ALL.



It's probably just grindcore whose lyrics talk about mince. Like for shitcore.



Not the most useless but like many others, it's about inexperienced metalheads who come up with assertions that should just stay hypothesis while they just should listen to more music before opening a thread.

Nasum and Nails are definitely sounding bands in the genre where Nasum takes a lot of influence from Swedish d-beat while Nails draws a lot more parallels to the hardcore genre with their beatdown moments.

Though honestly, I have noticed a small trend of people in the grind scene online who think grindcore bands who got too successful as being "fake". But that's mostly just sweaty dudes clinging to their Hellnation 7-inch collections being irrationally angry at bands like Full of Hell for making more than $15 from their music.

The first time I saw the "false grind" category it was on Reddit, and it has to do with some people saying Nails was powerviolence and not grindcore, I really don't know the difference, it sounds like grindcore to me. The other time I saw it recently was when I came across with this image:



The Insect Warfare guys are bashing The Locust, an avant-garde grindcore/hardcore punk band, a little bit different to the regular grindcore bands. The weird thing to me is that none of these bands have success or are commercial, quite the opposite to be honest. I think it's pretty stupid to say that any of these bands are sell outs or some shit like that.

I'm not too familiar with the American grindcore scene, but it seems that bands disses each other on a regular basis.

Nails doesn't sound like powerviolence.

Powerviolence really morphs from 80s hardcore punk. You can definitely hear power violence bands sticking to that formula and taking it more extreme.

Nails also doesn't sound like grindcore bands.

To me Nails is a beatdown hardcore band with blast beats.

And the Locust really just sounds like metalcore.

Bro do you guys think that grind core (not sure why the words are separate) is more porous than a sponge or not, I'm willing to say it might be between 25 percent to a absolute maximum of 34 percent (a flat 35 to me would just be giving grind core too much credit) but unfortunately I don't have my calculator on hand so I can't say for certain

I'm gonna go crunch some numbers and then I'll be back with a detailed analysis of the difference in porousness between grind core and an everyday household sponge