THE RISE AND FALL OF NIL-CORE

Nil-core was all the rage in 2025. By then, punk had been whittled down to its finest point. No longer were bands trying to be emotive or wasting their time stripping rock down to its bones. This musical phenomenon was taking the energy and turning it backwards. There had been several trends throughout the 00’s: Slum-core, Shift-core, House-core, to name a few. But none of these punk efforts had the staying power and enigmatic grace of Nil-core.

The flagship band of this genre was a little outfit from Hackensack, NJ called Stunt Cock. They single-handedly and somewhat accidentally projected a new sound onto a dying scene. During their very first set in a jam-packed back room at the Flow-Bee Club, the crowd of 14 were astonished to see the quartet set up their instruments, crank up the amps as loud as they could go and set their guitars upon stands. At that point, all of the members of Stunt Cock simply stood there, glaring back at the aghast audience. The set lasted 20 minutes with not a single note played. Of the 14 people in attendance, seven started bands in the Nil-core tradition. Among them were such notables such as Lilac Drive, Hmmmmmmmm, The Roebucks and Purth-de-Purth. Where Stunt Cock left off, these bands endured, spanning an impressive 35 years collectively, usually putting out their initial Nil-core releases, then expanding beyond its minimal boundaries.

We all know the unfortunate, splintered and drug-fueled ending of Stunt Cock, but what we don’t know is if they intentionally started this impressive sub-genre of punk or discovered it by accident.

Like most of rock history, who knows if we’ll ever know the truth.




-SLL