13 Best Deathcore Albums of the 2000s (Ranked)

What are the best deathcore albums of the 2000s?

The early aughts gave birth to deathcore. While staple elements of the genre had been present in metal before the turn of the century, it was the post-Y2K scene that laid the foundation for what it would become. Many OG metal heads were disgusted by Myspace-era scene kids bastardizing death metal and hardcore, but deathcore found an audience regardless and became supremely popular.

Deathcore truly began to stir from 2002 to 2003 when bands such as Despised Icon and All Shall Perish released their first offerings to the world. Within a couple years, a slew of new deathcore bands began popping up, while other already established acts shifted their sound to stake their claim within the genre as well.

READ MORE: 10 Best Deathcore Albums of the 2020s (So Far)

As deathcore was still in its initial stages, there was a lot of variety in its sound. Some bands helped design the deathcore mold we know today, while others rested on elements of death metal, mathcore, thrash and grind to help carry their own brand of developing deathcore. Some of those bands didn’t survive the decade. Some are still dominant in the space 20-plus years later.

Today, deathcore is alive and well. There’s a more focused formula in its current era, but even that is constantly being expanded by bands eager to test the limits of what deathcore can be. No matter where it goes, though, it all traces back to the bands that pioneered a new metal subgenre in the 2000s that would lead to many a bree, blegh, and wall of death.