Dear Hollow’s Mathcore Madness [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

The equation above is AMG’s freakishly rigid and completely objective algorithm for scoring albums and determining quality. We incorporate statistics and abstract algebra, which I understand are very complicated mathses, in order to get you the highest quality extreme music this side of the Hudson or Atlantic or Yangtze or wherever the hell you are. The trouble is, you bastards don’t listen to math (i.e. “hurr durr, Wilderun is so much better than this shit.”). So I listen to math because I’m a contributing citizen and patriot – I listen to mathcore for you. I wade through the cesspools of skronk and sass – RYM and Reddit – for the best of the best. I do it for the, like, three of you who dig it and the, like, eight billion of you who yell at teens to turn it off before shuffling back inside for a bowl of Great Grains. What I do is super mathematical, so you know it’s mega serious. Mathcore is about as unlistenable and scathing as it is a total sellout – so you can offend nearly everyone who hears it. Random rhythms, migraine-inducing tempo shifts, painful squeals, no sense of melody or counting, vocals a la cheese grater to the throat – it’s skronk. So enjoy my bounties, you three. The rest of you can fuck right off.

Commence panic chords!!

Deadguy // Near-Death Travel Services – While the mathcore world is deeply indebted to the likes of Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Botch, New Jersey’s Deadguy is your favorite mathcore band’s favorite mathcore band, and Near-Death Travel Services picks up right where 1995 stylistic landmark Fixation on a Coworker left off. It feels like a throwback to the 90’s, a rough and raw edge and bass-heavy thickness adding to the chaotic hardcore attack, desperate and vicious rhythms (“Kill Fee,” “Barn Burner”) as well as dwelling in the simmering cacophonies (“The Forever People,” “All Stick and No Carrot”). Near-Death Travel Services is a hardcore anthem at heart, with the madness of mathcore’s earliest innovators – it’s a return to form for Deadguy as if thirty years of silence never happened.

Near-Death Travel Services by Deadguy

The Callous Daoboys // I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven – Everyone loves The Callous Daoboys. If you don’t fuck wit’ Carson Pace, Jackie Buckalew, and company, fuck right off. Compared to its sassy catalog, I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven is much more aggressive and in-your-face. The collective still embraces the wonky jazz- and flamenco-influenced movements and clean vocals (“Tears on Lambo Leather,” “Body Horror for Birds”), 2025 finding more of a traditional emo influence than ever (“Lemon,” “Two-Headed Trout”), the real meat of this album is a kick in the teeth, with a nearly deathcore heaviness assaulting the ears with blistering intensity (“Schizophrenic Legacy,” “III. Country Song in Reverse”). I Don’t Want to See You… feels like pure weaponization, yet it’s undeniably The Callous Daoboys in the best ways.

I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven by The Callous Daoboys

Pupil Slicer // Fleshwork – Something was missing in Pupil Slicer’s 2023 album Blossom. Whether it be the vulnerable alt-rock influence or more experimental songwriting, it felt like a distinct step down from the mechanical mathgrind insanity of Mirrors. Fleshwork fills that missing piece. Vocalist/guitarist Kate Davies and company, including new bassist Luke Booth, balance the surgical with the accessible through a thick haze of noise rock atmosphere and warm rumbling bass, tracks achieving a striking warmth and disorienting psychedelia through more subdued techniques (“Fleshwork,” “Nomad,” “Cenote”) and a savage blistering saturation in others (“Gordian,” “Black Scrawl”). It’s a simple trick to balance industrial precision with noisy warmth but it pays dividends for the London trio: Pupil Slicer releases its best album yet.

Fleshwork by PUPIL SLICER

Kaonashi // I Want to Go Home. – TikTok mathcore feels oxymoronic, but Philly’s Kaonashi gained more traction on the platform than any other band of the same ilk.1 Gaining notoriety from Peter Rono’s controversial vocals – more howl than scream – the act injects a far more prominent dose of post-hardcore, punk, and emo into its story-driven approach. Mathcore’s stinging panic chords and off-kilter arrhythmic chugs are present, but given the vocals and lyrical focuses on mental health, childhood traumas, and relationships, it’s a controversial act to begin with, having more in common in melody and theme with Midwest emo or City of Caterpillar-esque screamo. I Want to Go Home. is a jagged, inspiring, awkward, powerful, and overlong product of a truly unique act with a divisive style.

I Want To Go Home. by Kaonashi

Theophonos // Allegheny Rains – The man behind the concluded Serpent Column project, Detroit’s Jimmy Hamzey, fuses a scathingly dissonant black metal attack reminiscent of Ceremony of Silence with the hardcore attitude and jagged rhythms of Converge, resulting in a more chaotic, mathier Plebeian Grandstand. Allegheny Rains, his third full-length, continues the distinctly American industrialist soundscape established in Ashes in the Huron River, combining the all-out assaults of pitch-black chaos with whirlwinds of panic chords and pick sweeps (“Death in the Current Year,” “Gray Shovels”) to punky hardcore romps (“When the Future Arrived,” “Fragility of Spring”), and ominous crawls through densely dark textures (“The Fulcrum,” “Edelweiss, My Love”). AI art aside, Allegheny Rains is a dark blaster that serves to get the avant-garde black metal fans some rhythmic chaos and to compel mathcore fans to get some culture for once.

Allegheny Rains by Theophonos

fallfiftyfeet // Counterfeit Recollections – fallfiftyfeet is all about variety. Establishing their sound quietly through a debut full-length four years ago and scattered splits, the West Virginia trio’s foundation of metalcore – yes, the sellout kind – is built upon by post-hardcore vocals, screamo grinds, and mathcore’s warped melodics. Featuring crushing breakdowns and poppy choruses that feel straight outta Hot Topic in 2009 (“Counterfeit Recollections,” “Best Revenge”), ominous clashes of the brutal chugs and dissonant melodics (“Disarrangement,” “Phantom Growing Pains”), and mathy beatdowns (“The Kingsport Curse,” “Horror Tropes”). What’s notable is that fallfiftyfeet doesn’t necessarily fall into the late-2000s metalcore stereotype because their melodic template is rooted in the Botch, even if their songs sound like B-sides of Asking Alexandria. The result is a metalcore album you can feel slightly better about blaring wit’ ur homiez.

Counterfeit Recollections by fallfiftyfeet

Adobe Homes // Años – Albuquerque quartet Adobe Homes is more the screamo side of mathcore you see in bands like Frail Body, Ostraca, or the tragically Dolph-neglected Massa Nera – the line between chaos and yearning is blurred. To be fair, you’d be remiss to turn on a few tracks and hear a screamier rendition of math rock shiftiness in Cap’n Jazz or Pianos Become the Teeth (“Return”), complete with emotional chord progressions, complex layered plucking, desperate shrieks, and melancholy singing. Doin’ my home state proud with the skramz a la mathy rhythms and manic drumming (“Tennamis,” “Satandelay Me¡ White Empress,”2 “Pals”), emo anthems fed through the Delta Sleep machine (“Pacheco,” “File Under ‘Heartache’ for 2010-12”) and placid and heartfelt instrumental pieces (“Return,” “Translated into Flesh”). Adobe Homes is gentle and yearning, its mathcore attack more like a pillow fight, but its emotion more than compensates.

Años by ADOBE HOMES

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