The essential list, from the founding records to the bands touring next month, with one album each and no ranking, because crossover is a trade rather than a hierarchy.
The founders
D.R.I., from Houston to San Francisco, twenty two songs in seventeen minutes on the first EP, and a 1987 album that named the style. Suicidal Tendencies, from Venice, whose 1983 debut got onto television and who had turned into a thrash band with a virtuoso guitarist by 1988.
Corrosion of Conformity, from North Carolina, whose Animosity in 1985 is hardcore with the throttle half open and a distinctly southern feel. Stormtroopers of Death, three days, four men who were not a band, and the crossover rulebook.
New York
Cro-Mags, from the Lower East Side, and the founding text of New York hardcore, made by people who had been living in squats. Nuclear Assault, Dan Lilker's band after Anthrax and the most balanced hybrid anybody made. Ludichrist, Crumbsuckers and Leeway behind them.
The second tier
Excel from Venice, whose Split Image in 1987 deserves to be as well known as anything on this page. Attitude Adjustment from the Bay Area. Cryptic Slaughter from Santa Monica, who were faster than almost anybody. Wehrmacht from Portland, who were faster still and considerably sillier.
The present
Municipal Waste from Richmond, Virginia, who made the revival fun rather than reverent. Iron Reagan, largely the same people, angrier and more political. Enforced, also from Richmond, who are the most serious of the modern crossover bands.
And Power Trip, from Dallas, who came out of hardcore and made the record that proved this form is not a period style.
| Band | From | Start with | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suicidal Tendencies | Venice, California | Join the Army | 1987 |
| D.R.I. | Houston and San Francisco | Dealing with It! | 1985 |
| Corrosion of Conformity | North Carolina | Animosity | 1985 |
| S.O.D. | New York | Speak English or Die | 1985 |
| Cro-Mags | New York | The Age of Quarrel | 1986 |
| Nuclear Assault | New York | Game Over | 1986 |
| Excel | Venice, California | Split Image | 1987 |
| Municipal Waste | Richmond, Virginia | Hazardous Mutation | 2005 |
| Iron Reagan | Richmond, Virginia | Crossover Ministry | 2017 |
| Power Trip | Dallas, Texas | Nightmare Logic | 2017 |
What links them
Not a sound, because Cro-Mags and Municipal Waste have very little in common. What links them is a set of instincts: keep it short, write for a room rather than for a listener, put a section in that a crowd can move to, and do not take yourself so seriously that the audience cannot enjoy it.
Those instincts came from hardcore and they are the reason this corner of the genre has aged so much better than the ambitious end. A two minute song written to make a room move in 1986 still makes a room move.
Where to go next
If the short and fast end appeals, work back into hardcore itself: Discharge, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Poison Idea. If the heavier end appeals, go to New York hardcore proper and to the metallic hardcore of the 1990s.
And if the modern end is what lands, the current scene is healthier than at any point since 1988, with a functioning circuit and a steady supply of bands who learned all of this from records made before they were born.
The band who put the word on a sleeve has a piece of their own in D.R.I., and the wider account is in Crossover: Where Thrash Met Hardcore.
The records that are hard to find
A fair amount of this material was released in small quantities on labels that no longer exist, and the reissue situation is uneven.
Excel's Split Image has been reissued and is worth the effort. Attitude Adjustment and Cryptic Slaughter circulate but are patchy. Wehrmacht's Shark Attack is a genuine collector's item and is also, honestly, a novelty record played extremely fast.
The New York bands are better served: Cro-Mags, Leeway and the Crumbsuckers have all been reissued properly, largely because New York hardcore has an ongoing audience that keeps the catalogue in print.
What to listen for
Three things that separate a good crossover record from a fast one.
Whether the riffs are written or borrowed. The best of these bands write metal riffs; the weakest play hardcore with distortion.
Whether the breakdown earns its place. A mosh part dropped into a song at random is filler; one that arrives where the song has been heading is the entire point of the form.
And whether the band means it. Crossover has more room for humour than any other corner of this genre and it also has no room at all for insincerity, because the songs are too short to hide in.
Where the modern wave came from
Not from the 1980s bands directly, in most cases, but from skate culture and from a generation who found the records second hand.
Municipal Waste formed in Richmond in 2001 among people who had grown up on skateboarding and had worked backwards from there into D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies. Iron Reagan came out of the same circle. Power Trip came out of hardcore in Texas without much interest in the genre label at all.
What that produced is a wave with the instincts intact rather than the aesthetics copied. The modern crossover bands are short, fast, funny where appropriate and built for a room, which is what the form was always for.
The circuit
Crossover is currently the healthiest corner of this entire genre, and the reason is that it never depended on the metal industry. The bands play hardcore venues, hardcore festivals and skate events as readily as metal bills, and that gives them a circuit that survived every downturn the metal side went through.
A band like Enforced can tour continuously on rooms of four hundred people without ever needing a label to decide the genre is fashionable again, which is exactly the model the original bands were using in 1985.
Sources and notes
Years and labels refer to original pressings. Selections are editorial and limited to one record per band.
