The Blast Beat – Grindcore’s staple rhythm
A blast beat (sometimes written as “blastbeat”) is commonly characterized by successive or coinciding snare/bass drum hits, often accented with cymbals, crashes, hi-hat, (etc.), that give the music a very choppy rhythm at moderate tempos, and almost takes on a flowing and very “un-percussive” sonic personality of its own at higher tempos. The very nature of the blast beat almost necessitates the use of a double bass drum pedal setup, for greater efficiency.
The modern blast beat seems to have its origins in thrash and crossover; most sources point to the Dirty Rotten Imbeciles track No Sense, where such a beat is used sporadically.
Cryptic Slaughter, an oft-cited influence to many bands, and an early user of blast beats, incorporated fast, alternating snare-kick patterns into many of their songs.
Cryptic Slaughter – Set Your Own Pace (MP3 sample)
The energetic blast beat evolved out of hardcore, crossover, and thrash bands, and worked its way into grindcore, along with its sister genres powerviolence, death metal and black metal.
Mike Smith, drummer of NY death metal band Suffocation, discusses blasting
Although the blast beat is criticized as “soulless” rhythm-less filler, talented drummers who opt to use it often add their own unique and even complex variants of the beat. The beat is also used by more advanced musicians to accentuate more foundational riffs. This can often be observed in works by pivotal grind and death metal bands from the late 80’s-early 90’s.
The beat is so effective at what it does that it has proliferated many “extreme music” fringe genres. Parody bands (such as Job For A Cowboy and Carnifex) utilize the blast beat as a neat fill for all of their dance songs, in between breakdowns.
Loved your article. Would definitely like to a grindcore band of the week set of articles, to give the reader a chance to find bands not as easily found on the net like many other big names. If you do pursue this, i would to suggest a band called Youth Deceiver from Corpus Christi, TX. Their myspace url is: http://www.myspace.com/youthdeceiver
I think a lot of people would like them
“Parody bands (such as Job For A Cowboy and Carnifex) utilize the blast beat as a neat fill for all of their dance songs”
haha… perfect. fuck that shit
Nice article, but as a death metal drummer I feel the need to point something out:
“The very nature of the blast beat almost necessitates the use of a double bass drum pedal setup, for greater efficiency.”
The point of a double-footed blast is not extra efficiency or speed, it’s more power and a heavier feel to the beat.
Dividing a normal blast beat between both feet just doesn’t work; on an acoustic bass drum (or even triggered kit with any variation in response) this will produce a very weak, alternating bass feel that any drummer will tell you simply sounds “wrong”. In a “correct” double-footed blast (for a right handed drummer), the right foot will continue playing just as fast on the down beat (typically the cymbal), but the left foot is now playing the up beat (typically the snare).
The first blast beat, recorded was proably Heart Attack “From What I see” in 1983. I found this on Good bad music for.. blog. A while back as far as I can tell that seems right.
@ Psyhonaut23
Thanks – i never heard of “Heart Attack”
raw…