HOW GUITARISTS FROM DRUG CHURCH, MILITARIE GUN AND SCOWL ARE LEADING THE MELODIC MOVEMENT IN HARDCORE PUNK
By Jim Beaugez
EVERY GENRE OF music has its signature elements. Extreme metal has its blast beats, pop rock follows the familiar verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo formula, and hardcore punk uses bludgeoning breakdowns to give momentary respite from its frenetic assault.
But every so often, the exceptions become the rule. When the Baltimore-based melodic hardcore band Turnstile released their breakthrough album Glow On to acclaim in 2021, reaching the top 30 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, the dam holding back a new group of outliers in the hardcore scene burst.
The ethos and the attitude haven’t changed — empowerment, independence and camaraderie are still central to hardcore music — but bands like Drug Church, Scowl, Fiddlehead and Militarie Gun are now bringing a much broader range of stylistic influences to the genre. Citing canonic alt-rock and pop-punk bands like Nirvana and Green Day, not to mention OG pop icons like the Beatles, the new breed of hardcore bands treats boundaries with as much respect as a barricade at a Knocked Loose show.
“[We] came from punk, and punk never really had rules,” says Malachi Greene of Scowl. “You look at the early Gilman scene [in Oakland, California] and you see bands like Op[eration] Ivy or Rancid or any of those bands; they’d be playing with Filth and Neurosis and Green Day. When you come from a melting pot of creativity,
it’s gonna come out in some way, shape or form.”
Nick Cogan, who pulls double duty on guitar in Drug Church and Militarie Gun, is more intentional about pulling from a diverse range of influences while avoiding some of hardcore’s most inked-in trademarks.
“I have no interest in a breakdown for the sake of a breakdown,” Cogan says. “I just think someone needs to be able to take something away from the song, and I would love for [that to be] a catchy melody or chorus. I think a lot of bands are learning that.”
In Drug Church, Cogan instead uses those moments to wrestle more sounds from his Fender Jazzmaster, like the buzzing riffs on Hygiene, the band’s 2022 set and fourth album overall. Since their debut self-titled EP in 2012, Cogan and co-guitarist Corey Galusha have inched away from the conventional sonic signifiers of hardcore punk, weaving melody into their interplay without compromising their crushing riffs. And according to their atypical songwriting process, the music has to stand on its own even before vocalist Patrick Kindlon gets hold of i
