Moments are, by definition, ephemeral. And the widely documented “moment” that hardcore experienced in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19 lockdown is now relegated to history.
That’s not to say the energy infusion that reshaped the genre earlier in the decade has entirely dissipated. Turnstile, Knocked Loose, Sunami, and many other contemporary bigwigs still draw large crowds worldwide, and hardcore is more visible online than ever before. But it’s the middle of 2025, and a new moment has taken its place.
For Pittsburgh hardcore, this one’s even better than the last.
While the post-lockdown surge has tapered off in other hardcore scenes around the country, things have only ramped up in Pittsburgh. Within the last six months, a whole new wave of local bands have spawned from within the city’s spin-kick incubation chambers: Lake Verity, Vague, Madman, Reduced to Dust, Savage Primal Impulse, and the short-lived Didact. These bands have all swarmed local lineups throughout 2025, and they’re made up of many of the youngest, proudest, hardest-moshing kids in the city’s subculture.
Between those groups and the previous micro-generation of Pittsburgh bands who’ve now attained local institution status — Princess, Pain Clinic, Power of Fear, Arc of Violence — the Pittsburgh hardcore scene has a more robust stable of talent in the 2020s than it possibly ever has. And it’s not going underappreciated — over the last year-and-a-half, crowds at local shows and touring bills alike have gotten bigger, younger, and more active, making overall enthusiasm level at each show higher.
“It’s definitely the best now it’s ever been,” says A.J. Rassau, owner of Pittsburgh’s main hardcore venue, Preserving Underground in New Kensington. Rassau has been playing in bands and booking shows regionally since 1999. “Attendance-wise and diversity-wise, I would say now [is the best it’s been] for sure.”
Grace Craig, the 24-year-old frontwoman of Lake Verity, began going to hardcore shows in Pittsburgh in the late 2010s. “Most of the people there [had been] into it since the 2000s,” she says. “It was all the old heads, mostly. Not a lot of people my age.”
Even when things opened up after COVID lockdown, and Preserving became the region’s new hardcore hub, attendance at shows was pitiful compared to today’s consistent turnout.
“I remember the first show after COVID was Death Before Dishonor at Preserving,” Craig recalls. “There were maybe 15 people there.”
As more touring bands came through the city in 2022 and 2023, newer faces appeared, and sold-out rooms at Preserving became more common. However, even then, there were only a small handful of homegrown bands repping the scene, and the community’s social makeup was far more homogenous than it is now.
“Whenever I used to go to shows, it was me, maybe three other girls, and a room full of old guys,” says Ady Lewis, a 20-year-old tattoo artist who says Pittsburgh hardcore defines her social life. “It’s a relief having more people in the scene, more girls in the scene, more kids. It’s more fun.”
Pittsburgh has a decades-old reputation for violent dancefloors and a penchant for beatdown: a specific sub-style of slow, mercilessly heavy hardcore that’s been a fixture of the 412 since No Retreat and Built Upon Frustration came to regional prominence at the turn of the century. For this new wave of fans and local bands, maintaining Pittsburgh’s uniquely heavy atmosphere doesn’t come at the expense of fostering musical and social diversity.
“We try to keep it as violent as possible,” says 26-year-old Mateo Smith, the frontperson of Vague and the founder of A Knife Bouquet, a new DIY booking cooperative that aims to make Pittsburgh a go-to touring destination for hardcore-adjacent touring acts. “I see half these kids moshing harder than me, and I’m like, damn,” Smith enthuses.
Smith’s partner in A Knife Bouquet is Craig, another dancefloor regular who, when she’s not shrieking in Lake Verity, can be spotted in the pit swinging toward the ceiling like she’s pulling angels out of the sky. That the most hyped people in the crowd are the ones filling out these new bands is a crucial factor in the scene’s renaissance: by the kids, for the kids.
“It’s awesome seeing Lake Verity with a trans frontperson,” says Smith, who identifies as non-binary. “Just seeing the shine they’re getting and the genre they’re doing and the support that they’re getting — they’re putting Pittsburgh on their backs. It’s really shaping the scene right now.”
While Lake Verity certainly summon a classically Pittsburgh pit reaction every time they play, musically and aesthetically, they’re not rehashing the city’s well-worn beatdown tropes. In sound and vibe, Lake Verity are modeled after the newer metalcore bands on Ephyra Recordings (Balmora, Azshara, Holder), and they’re inspired by the DIY movement that the Connecticut-based Ephyra is leading in the Northeast. After trekking out to witness the notoriously batshit Ephyra showcase back in May 2024, the future members of Lake Verity returned knowing they had to start a metalcore band of their own, one that would ideally inspire the same degree of moshpit mayhem back home in Pittsburgh.
“We saw the scene up there, and it’s really similar to how it is here now,” Craig says. “Where every single band, the local bands and everyone outside of it … [the moshing] was nonstop. The energy never dulled for a moment.”
Smith’s own band, Vague, are also inspired by the brooding metalcore of the Ephyra movement, as well as late ’90s metallic hardcore and 2000s deathcore — eras of music that are practically vintage to the band’s Gen-Z lineup. Vague’s state of deterioration demo is macabre and shrieky, replete with piercing panic chords and bruising mosh parts designed for stalking menacingly across a low-lit dancefloor.
Lake Verity’s demo landed in fall 2024, but every other band in this wave of Pittsburgh hardcore debuted their first recordings in 2025. The fruits are plentiful, — Madman features three former members of Pittsburgh metallic hardcore beasts Hazing Over, but they’re going for a rawer, more traditional hardcore sound with this band, as heard on the apoplectic, exacting The Demo. Reduced to Dust’s Vulgar Acts of Faith EP fuses groovy beatdown hardcore with ogre-slaying grunts of brutal death metal. Savage Primal Impulse, fronted by Power of Fear guitarist Patrick Phelps and featuring two members of Vague, capture the bracing ferocity of their namesake on their face-mangling April demo. And although Didact unceremoniously broke up after just two shows, their self-titled EP — convulsive, lumbering, psychotic — is a highlight worth hanging onto.
“We have a pretty diverse scene,” Lewis says. “There’s a lot of weirdos, a lot of scary guys, a lot of cool people. It’s nice that they can come together and everyone has an outlet.”
On July 18, the scene celebrates. A Knife Bouquet teamed with Taste of Broken Glass — the photography/videography duo of Princess’s Zach Bird and Noah Sommers — for a local showcase that encapsulates Pittsburgh hardcore’s eclectic upswing. The nine-band bill — Princess, Lake Verity, Vague, Madman, Arc of Violence, and several interstate friends of the scene — will be congregating for a show at the newly-opened New Low venue in Mt. Oliver, which has become a second home for 412 hardcore outside of Preserving. The DIY mini-fest will also boast a barbecue, tattoos by Lewis’s company Art by Ady, DJ sets, and, surely, plenty of spin kicks.
“It’s really cool to see that we can do that,” Lewis says proudly. “And we’re just a bunch of kids.”
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2025.
