Brokencyde

• Genre: Emo/Hardcore
• Hometown: Albuquerque
• Brokencyde Website

About

It was probably only a matter of time before someone fused screamo and crunk, but Brokencyde aren't just some Hollywood elevator pitch. These young guns from out-of-the-way Albuquerque, born late enough to have experienced alt rock, rave and hip-hop well after their initial booms, go at their influences like magpies. Crunk hip-hop and Eurotrance make for the unlikely foundations of their sound, but it also makes a certain kind of sense: Southern hip-hop producers have been stealing ravers' riffs for years now. As for the nu-metal guitars, death-growl vocals and I.C.P.-style theatrics, they come with the territory: Brokencyde are the inevitable product of America's alternative festival landscape -- the muddy, jubilant mosh-pit where the hip-hop, dance and rock stages meet. The auto-tuned vocals are just a matter of course, because as rude as they may come off, these guys are pop to the core -- not in sound, but in genetics. Mutated, maybe. But this is the sound of kids finding their voice and twisting trends to their own ends.

- Philip Sherburne