Mathcore / DEP-verseView on the map →

Frontierer

United Kingdom · formed 2011 · last active 2026

Frontierer are a transatlantic project — Pedram Valiani writing in Edinburgh, Chad Kapper screaming in the USA — who built mathcore out of material the genre normally keeps at the door. The riffs are Dillinger-shaped and the meters never settle, but the tone is the point: whammy-pedal sirens, digitally mangled guitars, and interludes of what Heavy Blog Is Heavy called 'filthy glitch-ridden drum and bass' and 'twisted and glitchy electronica'. The same review names them 'a furious nexus point between mathcore, noise, sludge and glitch electronica', which is about as close to a genre as they get. Where their peers use electronics as an intro or an outro, Frontierer run the guitars themselves through the broken-machine treatment until riff and glitch stop being separable — the band's own phrase for it is 'Transatlantic Noise Terror'.

SCORE PROFILE

JazzyBalkanHardcoreSurfBarbershopDeathBlackTechnicalGlitchTheatricalFolkDoomDroneShoegazeAmbient8-bit
Jazzy0
Balkan0
Hardcore8
Surf0
Barbershop0
Death3
Black0
Technical8
Glitch7
Theatrical0
Folk0
Doom2
Drone0
Shoegaze0
Ambient1
8-bit0

Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.

WHY THOSE SCORES

  • Hardcore 8Mathcore in the Dillinger lineage - Heavy Blog Is Heavy describes 'splenetic, Dillinger-esque, jagged mathcore rhythms' at hardcore intensity throughout.
  • Death 3Low, guttural weight under the chaos; growled passages appear, but the vocal centre is hardcore screaming.
  • Technical 8'A bewildering and relentlessly shifty array of time signatures and meters' (Heavy Blog Is Heavy) - the complexity is constant rather than occasional.
  • Glitch 7Electronic manipulation is a constituent of the sound, not an ornament: 'a furious nexus point between mathcore, noise, sludge and glitch electronica', with 'twisted and glitchy electronica interludes' and 'filthy glitch-ridden drum and bass' between the riffs, and a guitar tone wrung out of whammy pedals into what the same review calls 'the most ungodly, dischordant noises'. Scored below Genghis Tron (9), whose electronics carry whole songs, and above Car Bomb (5), whose digital edge is a production choice rather than a named ingredient.
  • Doom 2'Passages of melody and doomy discordance' punctuate the fast material.
  • Ambient 1Brief calm before the next collapse; the interludes are glitch, not atmosphere.

MEMBERS

  • Pedram Valianiguitar, principal songwriter (2011-present)
  • Chad Kapperlead vocals (2012-present)
  • Dan Stevensonguitar
  • Iain Macleodbass
  • Luke Courseydrums

CONNECTIONS

tour

FURTHER LISTENING

Nearest score profiles in the atlas.

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