Snapcase's 1997 sophomore album Progression Through Unlearning is one of the best and most influential metalcore releases of all time, in celebration of its 25th anniversary, the band is giving it a vinyl reissue. We're stoked to be teaming up with them on an exclusive transparent yellow vinyl variant, limited to just 250 copies! Pre-order yours while they last.
Here's what we said about Progression Through Unlearning in our list of essential '90s metalcore albums:
Progression Through Unlearning deserves a spot on this list just for that snare sound alone. Produced by Steve Evetts (who did Deadguy's equally classic Fixation On A Co-Worker two years earlier), Snapcase's sophomore LP has one of the hardest-hitting high-pitched snares in all of metalcore, and they let you know it right away with the iconic drum intro to album opener "Caboose." It's as memorable an element of this album as Daryl Taberski's distinct bark, and it's an influential element too. It would be hard to believe that Vein weren't taking cues from this album's production when they made their instantly-loved 2018 debut album errorzone. The influence of Progression Through Unlearning doesn't stop there though. Refused may have put out one of the most seminal punk albums the following year with The Shape of Punk to Come, but even they would tell you they were taking notes from Progression Through Unlearning for that album. Progression Through Unlearning may not have gotten the same level of widespread recognition that The Shape of Punk To Come got, but you can trace a lot of the punk and metal bands that got big in the early 2000s back to this album. The album was more complex than some of the band's peers, but still not spastic enough to qualify as mathcore, which helped Snapcase occupy an appealing middle ground. You could still bang your head to this album as easily as you could to the bands with the more simple grooves and breakdowns, but Progression Through Unlearning also appealed to fans of brainier music. The rhythmic and melodic work on this album was innovative at the time, and even if you might forget that since the music Snapcase helped pioneer eventually became so widespread, this album still retains a charm that a lot of Snapcase's followers never had.
Read the full '90s metalcore list here and pick up our new vinyl variant here.
Snapcase will also play a hometown Buffalo show on November 4 at Rec Room with Against All Hope, Cinderblock, Exhibition, Spaced and Smash N' Grab, and that show celebrates the band's upcoming book Optic, "a 144-page visual history of the band's earliest moments all the way through to their not-so-final show in January 2005. In addition to hundreds of images, Optic will feature insight from friends and colleagues throughout the hardcore scene that tell stories from the road, the studio and of the band's widespread impact. Full details on the book will be announced closer to the early-November release date and show in Buffalo."