Anthems for the Anthropocene

Lead singers and difficult personalities might as well be synonyms. The frontman of the Baltimore-based hardcore band Hatebeak, Waldo, is no exception. With a blistering sound that challenges even the most sturdy of listeners, this is perhaps unsurprising, but it is Waldo’s austere lifestyle, in addition to the group’s provocative music, that have earned Hatebeak a cult following among the hardcore music community.  While Hatebeak is known for pushing the limits of hardcore music in ways that seem to both mock and ridicule, they nevertheless take their art quite seriously. Waldo refuses to wear clothing or perform live, and confines himself to a strict diet of nuts and seeds. To some, his vocals are a series of incomprehensible shrieks occasionally interspersed with inane non-sequiturs, while others view Waldo and his musical endeavors more sympathetically. After all, Waldo is a Congolese grey parrot. 

For many people, hardcore music is esoteric at best, alarmingly unpleasant at worst. But for those who produce, perform and listen to it, hardcore music has long been an outlet not only for extreme emotions, but also extreme political ideas. On one hand, right-wing political groups, including white nationalists and neo-Nazis, have a history of using heavy music as a tool to spread their ideology. This is one issue, in particular, that some hardcore groups are fighting back against with explicitly anti-fascist music, representing a central tension in the hardcore music scene. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, hardcore music has become a means of grappling with the existential realities of climate change and environmental destruction—a reverberant tool for navigating the dark, uncertain waters of the Anthropocene. 

Decades before contemporary movements such as the Extinction Rebellion mainstreamed the ideas of a more radical eco-politics, a sub-set