City Of Caterpillar is a hardcore band from Richmond, Virginia who were active from 2000 to 2003, and then reformed to play some shows, releasing a new album in 2022. Members of the band were also in Pg.99, Majority Rule, Enemy Soil and Verse En Coma to name a few. They have an extensive discography including three 12"/CDs, a live 7", a split 7" with System 2600, a split 7" with Pg.99, a CDr/Cassette and a demo. They also had tracks on a few compilations.
City Of Caterpillar was and remains one of the most prolific emo/hardcore bands of the early 2000s, playing countless shows, releasing such a large amount of content and blending genres to create the sound that became common in their time. A lot of their work is very post-rock influenced, similar to the likes of Funeral Diner at times but perhaps with more of an experimental twist. City Of Caterpillar's songs seamlessly shift from technical and complex to loud and chaotic, often times building up to the chaos in a final crescendo.
City Of Caterpillar melds the ups and downs and muttered vocals of Indian Summer, complex guitar riffs of Maximilian Colby and the slow, dramatic build ups of Mogwai. Despite their odd mix of very different sounding bands and styles, they manage to sew it together in a way that meshes into a whole new style of hardcore.
Despite City Of Caterpillar being one of the more well-known and well preserved hardcore bands from this time, they feel essential to have on any blog about hardcore. Our goal with this blog is to shed light on a lot of bands that fly under the radar and deserve attention, but City Of Caterpillar is well worth writing because they were just so damn good at what they did. They are respected and spoken about often (often for an already niche genre) for a reason. I also think that despite their usage of common elements in 2000s hardcore, they also use a lot of things that make them stand out. They have a sound not quite like anyone else.
S/T 12"/CD 2002 (Repeater Records, Level Plane Records, Sonzai Records, The Archivist)
Mystic Sisters 12"/CD 2022 (Relapse Records, Daymare Recordings)
System 2600 / City Of Caterpillar (Split Recording) 2000 (Sea Of Dead Pirates)
S/T Tape/CDr 2000 (Self-released)
Pg.99 And City Of Caterpillar - A Split Personality split 7" 2001 (Level Plane Records)
Driving Spain Up A Wall 12" 2017 (Repeater Records, Adagio830)
Demo + Live Recording CD/12" 2002 (Level Plane Records, The Archivist, Adagio830, 6-60 Records, Lilacsky Records)
Complete Discography 2xCD 2018 (Long Legs Long Arms)
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