Lightworker Leads the Modern Metalcore Resurgence

Twenty years after its unlikely rise, metalcore is here to stay.

The early-2000s subgenre seemingly came out of nowhere, with the help of the world wide web, and became known for its clean, Auto-Tuned choruses and catchy hooks.

A mix of hardcore breakdowns and melodic metal, metalcore seemed to be a flash in the pan, a quirky pop-culture phenomenon adjacent to emo, but the big bands of the day — the Devil Wears Prada, August Burns Red and Parkway Drive, to name a few — endured and have since inspired a new generation of acts.

Now a second wave of metalcore is emerging and gaining popularity. The Bay Area band Lightworker, which debuted in 2017 with the EP Resilience, is one of the current metalcore outfits that’s carrying on the subgenre.

“I think we got into it naturally,” guitarist Grayson Hurd says. “That early-2000s metal and metalcore stuff was a very prominent time for us.”

Hurd also credits such bands as Killswitch Engage and As I Lay Dying, frontrunners of American heavy metal's new wave, for inspiring Lightworker and providing a sonic blueprint. Even after all these years, he and bandmates Joe Calderon (vocals) and Ryan Johnson (drums) are still fans of that type of music.

“I consider us music fans first," Hurd says, "because we were those kids growing up who were looking up to other bands like, ‘How do we do that? What do you even do to get to that point?' You can’t go to school for that."

So it’s no surprise that Lightworker’s output has drawn comparisons to that time in heavy music, with many labeling the band's sound as nostalgic. Recent singles “Burn Scar” and “First Light” — from Lightworker's upcoming record, How the Beautiful Decay, set to be released April 19 via Solid State Records — are evidence of that. Hear it for yourself on Friday, March 22, at HQ, when Lightworker joins a bill headed up by Eyes Set to Kill, which is celebrating fifteen years of its debut album, Reach, and also includes Discrepancies and No Future.

“I think to an extent, even with this stuff, we’re still getting comparisons, or people say they’re getting nostalgia vibes and it’s reminding them of early-2000s stuff,” Hurd shares. “To be honest, there’s a lot of things where we’re really trying not to do that, but...it’s just a part of our DNA.”
However, modern metalcore does take itself more seriously...and is better off for it. Gone are the T-Pain-style vocals and silly song titles. The more mature sound proves that the subgenre has finally grown up, and Lightworker is among a handful of bands, including Dying Wish and Bleed From Within, leading that movement.

“We’re not really a band that’s trying to reinvent the wheel, by any means, but we’re also not a band that’s trying to follow or go against trends, either,” Hurd explains. "We’re always listening to what’s going on and keeping an ear to the ground of what’s happening."

He adds that he loves "that era" of the early 2000s. “I also love that certain bands like Bleed From Within are kind of just adding new flair to it, making it more aggressive and edgier and bringing it into the new era,” he continues.

How the Beautiful Decay is a record that deals with the trio’s personal struggles since its debut, Fury by Failure. Hurd, who is getting married in October, admits he suffered a bad case of writer’s block, particularly during the pandemic, while Calderon and Johnson dealt with their own “depressional moments.” Calderon came up with the album’s overall theme and concept of decay. Then Hurd had the perfect title.

“With the pandemic, [Calderon] was like, ‘I really want to dive into on the next record, thematically, decay,'" Hurd recalls. "The moment he said that, the album title popped into my head before we had written a word or note. I literally was just like, ‘I think the next album is going to be called How the Beautiful Decay.'”
That ethos served as Lightworker’s polestar throughout the process and pulled Hurd out of his creative funk. The result is a hard-hitting, polished metalcore album that won’t be mistaken for a 2004 rehash.

“That was almost like our North Star that we used in the back of our minds when we were writing the whole thing,” he says. “Even just the concept of things can be beautiful, but they can also slowly wither away and the beautiful disaster in that is having something wither away in front of you, but you don’t even know until down the road. It’s when you look back and it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, I had no idea.’ A lot of the record is about that.”

Lightworker, 7 p.m. Friday, March 22, HQ, 60 South Broadway. Tickets are $17.