Emo Vs Screamo: New Type of Emo Music?

This counterculture of music that derives its roots from emo music is often a tight-knit musical community, due to the nature of the lyrics and connotation that comes with a label like screamo. An aggressive offshoot of emo, screamo still keeps to the emotional tone of emo music but uses more screaming and distortion, leaning more towards hardcore than punk or indie. First developed in 1991, many of the first musical leaders of the genre saw themselves as political, and the lyrics reflectived that. Some bands saw themselves with theoretical inspiration, like Nietschze, backing their lyrics and emotions. The lyrics from screamo bands are often screamed or spoken over metal or progressive riffs, the lyrics being pure emotion. To that degree, some might argue that the typically-labeled hardcore band Hatebreed might qualify as screamo, with their hardcore riffs and screamed emotion.


Some of the early bands, like Circle Takes The Square, Orchid and The Blood Brothers, ultimately paved the way for modern screamo bands such as Thursday and Alexisonfire, which take a slower type of style that seems to be primarily borrowed from alternative rock. Ballads are not uncommon in screamo bands, and there is more focus on harmony and resonance and less on dissonant chords and electronic sounds.

While many people will be tempted to criticize screamo as being anything but emotional, they need to ultimately remember that emo originally evolved from hardcore rock and punk, and that screamo is basically playing the “old school” style of emo rock, or emocore. While some say that screamo can be considered a more pretentious style of music, that’s a point that inevitably arguable.

Going one step further, some emo and scene kids have taken to labeling bands as screamocore, which would be a blend of emo, screamo and hardcore. Bands like Evergreen Terrace, Underoath and Escaping Memory have been especially prone to garnering this label, which seems to have started somewhere in the Midwest part of the United States.