Metalcore often gets bad press. Metal in general, with all its diverse subgenres, has its niche – understood, after all these years,
as an often-extreme artform of mainly quite brilliant musicianship.

It may be too much for some people’s ears but any metal band worth its salt is dynamically complex. However, metalcore brings in extreme metal, hardcore punk and plenty of screaming vocals. Thus it rides across subgenres with uplifting metal melodies and angst-ridden punk vox in juxtaposition. Hard to pigeonhole. And that gets it bad press.

But hocus pocus to that, we say. With the likes of Killswitch Engage and Trivium rocking festivals and sound systems across the globe, this is fusion metal at its best. Step forward Texas In July, a band which should be up with the Killswitches fairly soon. From scintillating guitar work, savage melodies, extreme double-kick drumming and beautifully searing ‘n’ screaming vox, the all-American rockers are intense, emotional, aggressive and uplifting as hell.

Adam Gray (a drummer who, incidentally, juggled and drummed at the same time on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last year in a bid to ‘thrill’ William Shatner), Ben Witkowski, Alex Good, Christian Royer and Chris Davis are in Hong Kong as part of their South China Tour, pumping up a high-octane Hidden Agenda with tunes from their second album, One Reality, which was released last year as a more aggressive, polished step forward from their debut, I Am. With support from Face Face, there’s bound to be an electric atmosphere and moshing aplenty. There. That’s good press for metalcore. Long may it stay.

Matt Fleming 

Texas in July play Hidden Agenda on Thu Aug 16. Tickets: 9170 6073.