Metal and breakcore, on the surface, aren’t the most compatible genres. If you’ve only listened to them separate from each other, the differences can outweigh the commonalities. As subgenres of rock and EDM respectively, I could go on all day about how they sound different, but it goes deeper than that. Metal musicians mostly play live instruments, while breakcore producers mostly splice samples of live instruments on a computer. Metal is typically seen as heavy, dark, and angry while breakcore has a lot less emotional baggage. Metal is, let’s face it, predominantly hypermasculine and breakcore… definitely isn’t. Finally, metal fans go to different venues, perform their fan status differently, and in general don’t usually interact with fans of breakcore in a music-enjoying capacity. It’s like oil and water.
Be that as it may, an emulsion can happen provided enough passion and creativity. The two genres have commonalities in sound, and the reaction they provoke in listeners. First of all, both seek shock value through speed and aggression. Breakcore also has hardcore punk in its DNA because of its association with digital hardcore, and 80+ percent of metal is hardcore-influenced. Though they have disparate sounds, they both strive to agitate, motivate, and give catharsis, and so their combination must do so even stronger.
This ethos of maximalism has driven artists to combine metal and breakcore since the 2000s. Though France has something of a scene going in this niche, many of these artists have no regional ties to each other, just solo DJs independently playing with fire. There’s no one subgenre that lays claim to the fusion either: DJs rooted in digital hardcore, cybergrind, or their own private madness have mixed metal and breakcore for different reasons. Some do it to induce a hypercharged rave-like ecstasy, others a heightened sense of rage, and yet others little more than chaos and confusion. It’s an interesting case of convergent evolution towards this extreme, volatile, and unforgettable style.
I will always remember my first exposure to the mixture of metal and breakcore. It was the summer of 2020. Stuck at home in quarantine with nothing to do, I put on the music video for “Very Noise” and discovered a new world of weirdness, whimsy, and headbanging. Since then I’ve delved much further into the metal/breakcore fusion, and I’ve found several quality artists to share. Here are my top picks.
Igorrr are the most influential and successful act to combine metal and breakcore, and were probably your introduction to this style if you’ve ever heard it. Though they are now a full band, Igorrr started simply as a stage name of DJ, multi-instrumentalist, and Frenchman Gautier Serre. A synesthete, he claims to produce music with the goal of making paintings in his mind. He was one of the earlier artists to combine breakcore with metal – mainly grindcore but also black and death metal – and he freely throws baroque, Romanian folk, and countless other disparate styles into the mix. At its best, his music is humorously disturbing, overwhelming, and scratches a very special itch in the back of my min. Landmark albums Hallelujah (2012) and Savage Sinusoid (2017) prove that chaotic, shocking fusions of breakcore, metal, and other styles can be wrought into artful compositions with enough care and creativity. Over time, Igorrr have changed their focus to dark atmosphere and simpler songwriting – most of all on 2025’s Amen – leaving it up to other artists to embody the more manic spirit of their earlier years.
While some other artists listed here have made music similar to Igorrr’s, true fiends for their early sound should also check out Gautier Serre’s work in Whourkr (I didn’t tell you this but search “4247 Snare Drums” on YouTube) and Corpo-Mente.
Drumcorps was equally seminal as Igorrr to the fusion of metal and breakcore, if not more so. Like the rest of the names on this list, this is a solo project, belonging to Pennsylvanian Aaron Spectre (now based in Amsterdam). His 2006 debut Grist is a monument to rage and anxiety, a searing cybergrind slab which will melt your face off if you’re not careful. The way Spectre mashed breakbeats right into his mathy riffs brought an unprecedented element of madness, and made cybergrind a lot more cyber. After Grist, he took a hiatus until 2015, then continued like he never left. Creatures in 2022 was his most disruptive and chaotic release yet. He released For Everything in 2025, whose more straightforward punk approach made its politics more intelligible without sacrificing heaviness.
Ruby My Dear is the brainchild of Frenchman Julien Chastagnol. He started the project in the early 2010s by producing IDM. It was irreverent and interesting but stayed inside the genre’s box. After collaborating with Igorrr on 2014’s Maigre, he drank the campy metal Kool-Aid, and has only grown more ridiculous with time. Like Igorrr, he fuses breakcore and grindcore along with classical and folk music, but he has always taken a more jovial, festive tone, like a carnival ride on acid. Brame in 2018 was a defining moment for Ruby My Dear’s sound, but in my opinion he has reached a new level with Confiture À La Plage in 2025 (which actually released on the same day as the new Drumcorps). See our full review for the album here.
Divtech is my personal favorite artist in both cybergrind and digital hardcore. Their music is challenging in all the right ways: overwhelmingly heavy and abrasive, spewing rage, shockingly unpredictable, and sharply political. Since 2007 they have crafted elaborate tracks in the name of anarchism. Earlier releases were blaring mashes of cybergrind with breakcore and chiptune, clearly influenced by Drumcorps. Over time, breakcore mania gave way to digital hardcore, hip-hop, and clearer political messaging. This culminated in 2016 with Stasis Confines, Action Conditions, an anti-colonization masterstroke which sounds like the consciousness of Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine turned into a computer virus. Though the breakcore is limited on that album, it is still my strongest recommendation. Sadly, more recent releases have not lived up to its standard, but there is always hope for the future.
Kitcaliber is one of approximately 37 thousand solo projects from em essex of Hamilton, Ontario, who operate through their label Halley Labs. I have only recently learned of essex and their music, so I can’t comment much on their other projects, but I do know that their work as Kitcaliber rules. Albums like ИΣVΣRLAИD SØUИDGIRL$ and Halcyondaze are exuberant ragers of digital hardcore and hardcore EDM, with more than enough breakbeats and industrial metal riffs thrown in to belong on this list. These albums make me feel like a cyberpunk on stimulants in a neon-lit street race, and the fact that essex is a game developer too means it’s time to update my to-play list.
The newest artist in this article is American James McHenry’s cybergrind project Blind Equation. Though the level of breakcore insanity in their music is lower than most inclusions here, it’s still there, and I’m very upset I didn’t review them earlier this year, so here they are instead. Their main genre is electronicore, which is like metalcore but with EDM sounds instead of real instruments, and they combine this with pummeling cybergrind. It’s a style that struggles to sound both original and listenable at the same time, and the first couple Blind Equation releases reflect that struggle. This year, however, McHenry dropped A Funeral in Purgatory, which is leaps and bounds more enjoyable than anything he’s made previously, or any other electronicore I’ve heard this year. The songs are heavy, powerfully melodic, tastefully emo-coded, and enjoy clear but interesting production. Breakcore never takes center-stage, but appears as a fun diversion in songs like “A Funeral…” and “Flashback”.
If you want your music as weird and all-over-the-place as possible, this is the one for you. Pryapisme come from the same crop of French DJs as Igorrr and Ruby My Dear, but they’re somehow far more bizarre. In addition to Hardcore EDM (the umbrella that contains breakcore) and avant-garde metal, they throw in jazz, electro-swing, chiptune, and more. They then flip between these genres every ten seconds seemingly, and rarely repeat any ideas. Like the band name suggests, it’s excitement that goes on and on, whether or not you’d like it to. Another distinction to Pryapisme is their full lineup of instrumentalists. Like with Igorrr, this lets them write music with both electronic and acoustic in mind, and flex both to enhance the strangeness. My personal favorite of theirs has to be 2017’s Diabolicus Felinae Pandemonium. They haven’t had a new release since 2018, but it’s not too late for a comeback.
Rounding out the list we have Flatliner, the simplest and most reliable of the inclusions here. Anonymous and based in Avignon, France, a look at their Bandcamp page reveals anarchism and cynicism in equal measure. Musically, their tracks are construction-site levels of noisy and abrasive, but also very immersive. Many of their songs develop a hypnotic groove that reminds me of Ministry-esque industrial metal and the more intense side of jungle. If you’re capable of feeling concentrated while standing next to a jackhammer, or at least wish to be, Flatliner is the one for you. 2019’s A Daily Dose of Bullshit is my recommended starting point, and then 2021’s Apocalypse Wow for when you feel ready.
And there you have it, folks, a starter pack and more for degenerate metal-breakcore fusion. Whether you’re feeling goofy, rave-y, or ready to overthrow the government, there’s something here for you. To be clear, this list is only the beginning, as there’s a lot that didn’t quite make the cut here, and much more I have not yet discovered.
Now what are you still doing here? Go listen to metal and breakcore!
