Tough Guy Hardcore

Tough guy hardcore is the form of New York hardcore punk that crystallised in the late 1980s, replacing the speed of earlier hardcore with heavy, groove-based riffing, gang vocals and an assertive street masculinity. Bands including *Breakdown*, *Madball*, *Sick of It All* and *Killing Time* slowed tempos to spotlight mosh-part breakdowns, chanted choruses and lyrics of loyalty, territory and survival. The style became so dominant that it was long synonymous with New York hardcore itself, and in the 1990s it fed directly into beatdown hardcore and the metallic hardcore of *Merauder*, *25 ta Life* and *E.Town Concrete*.