Progressive metalcore, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Metalcore 1990
Hardcore and extreme metal fused: breakdowns, melodic riffing and screamed verses alternating with sung choruses.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
Killswitch Engage - Alive or Just Breathing. The album that defined a decade.
Killswitch Engage, Killswitch Engage (2000) - 3 What you asked about
Progressive metalcore 2010
Metalcore with eight-string guitars, ambient passages and structures borrowed from djent.
Sung and screamed. Clean singing and harsh vocals trade off, often chorus against verse.
Put on
Architects - All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. Devastating in both senses.
Architects, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us (2016) - 4 Where to go next
Pagan / Viking black metal 1990
Black metal with Norse mythology and folk melodies. Bathory's later albums are the starting point.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Assembled from the tree: every genre Progressive metalcore descends from, in order. Progressive metalcore has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.