Did a Christian Butt Rock Band Actually Invent Deathcore?

When was the first deathcore album released?

The genre began flourishing during the early to mid 2000s when bands such as Antagony, The Red Chord, Despised Icon and All Shall Perish were releasing their debuts. Many credit those bands and others from that decade as the founders and developers of deathcore, and they’d essentially be correct in doing so. Those bands released some of the most iconic deathcore albums to date. They ushered in a new brand of metal and helped shape what it would become: a metal subgenre that, two-plus decades later, is arguably more popular than ever.

Among the aforementioned bands, Antagony tends to get the least amount of credit for helping to establish the deathcore genre, when their debut album actually predates the others’ inaugural releases. Their debut LP, See Through These Eyes, came out in 2001; one of the first examples of deathcore in the 2000s. Yet, their first-ever demo actually dates back to 1998, and even though it’s mostly thrash-based, it’s evidence of a deathcore band existing before the decade most commonly associated with birthing the breakdown-heavy genre.

READ MORE: 13 Best Deathcore Albums of the 2000s (Ranked)

Yet, while Antagony certainly deserves more credit for pioneering deathcore, there’s another band that was established even earlier, and their full-length debut came out just as Antagony was getting started.

Who Released the First Deathcore Album?

In 1992, Supplication was formed – a young Christian band based out of Arlington, Texas. They released one demo in 1993 before multiple lineup changes and eventually changed the band’s name to Embodyment. After a couple more demo releases in 1994 and 1996, the band signed with Solid State Records in 1997 to release their debut full-length album, Embrace The Eternal.

It was on this LP that the band showed a noticeable shift in sound. Expanding on the death metal and grind heard on their previous demos, Embodyment developed a new style that would grow and thrive for decades.

While still clearly influenced by death metal bands such as Suffocation, the band began implementing a different vocal style, guitar tones, and things like panic chords. And while breakdowns had technically been around for many years prior in metal and even other genres, Embrace The Eternal features some of the earliest examples of what resemble the breakdowns that would go on to be a defining element of the deathcore sound.

Embodyment, “Swine”

Embodyment’s Influence on Deathcore (And Their Odd Transition to Alt-Rock)

After Embrace The Eternal, Embodyment’s sound changed even more drastically, due in part to a roster change that replaced original vocalist, Kris McCaddon, and guitarist, James Lanigan. The band’s next release, The Narrow Scope of Things, was an alternative and hard rock album that focused on clean vocals, almost entirely abandoning their previous death metal and deathcore origins.

However, despite what the band went on to become, eventually disbanding in 2004, Embodyment left an indelible influence on deathcore and its development. One album, a brief moment in a career of ever-changing sound, honed in on something new that would go on to spark a movement in metal that is still crushing over 25 years later.

Production and instrumentation choices on Embrace The Eternal can be clearly heard on later releases by bands such as Animosity, Glass Casket, and several others. This in turn would go on to further influence the bands that continued shaping deathcore well beyond the 2000s.

In a message to Loudwire, Glass Casket vocalist Adam Cody says, “Embrace The Eternal was a huge influence for Glass Casket. As a vocalist, I was really drawn to that style of rolled high screams and I know our guitarist Dustie [Waring] was a huge fan of the super groovy chugs throughout. This album opened our eyes to mixing genres and making something unique.”

So while they’re rarely given the warranted credit for setting things in motion for the genre, Embodyment undoubtedly played a huge role in helping create deathcore with their 1998 debut LP, Embrace The Eternal.