The crowd fell silent for a millisecond — just enough time for three figures standing on stage to ready their instruments. The light hum of a guitar distortion, the gentle caress of a cymbal and the crackling of microphones filled the air in an instant. The slow countdown of a metronome, ticking every other second, could not be heard but was felt in the crowd’s anticipation. Static. Then, without warning, a guitar riff broke the silence. The drummer found his line; the crowd roared with arms and legs flailing in a two-step motion. Chaos.
The occasion came courtesy of Slaughterfest Vol. 2, an annual hardcore music festival held every year at the Shredder — the self-proclaimed “heaviest hitting venue” in Boise. Bands from across the Treasure Valley and beyond gather at the venue to celebrate genres that often fly beneath the radar: punk, death metal and grindcore.
A community of artists who use hard-hitting instrumentals and reverberated vocals to reflect the state of current-day America with angst, nihilism and irony rests at the heart of this scene. Their music creates a safe space for people to express pent-up emotions and find belonging.
“It’s just angsty people trying to find a creative outlet,” said Scott Charles, vocalist for local metal band The Suturist. “Some people take boxing classes and others go mosh at a hardcore show.”
Meet Plea Deal and Pink Soapy Vomit, two local bands creating new sounds outside any comfortable musical label or box.
Plea Deal stands as one of the foremost up-and-coming bands in Boise’s hardcore punk scene. Recording in the Boise Bomb Bunker, a concrete building repurposed into a handy practice studio, Plea Deal aims to revitalize a musical tradition dating back to the 1970s.
The punk movement emerged in the mid-1970s and ‘80s alongside bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Sex Pistols. Not unlike current groups, these bands used their music to critique economic and social conditions.
Unlike many of their predecessors, Plea Deal employs even heavier instrumentals to convey their message, creating a bridge between punk, hardcore and metal.
“There is a punk scene here, but it’s not like what we’re doing,” said Noah Gouvea, the band’s bassist.
Gouvea is joined by bandmates Broden Rider, Caleb Moehlmann and main lyricist Dylan Clark. The group formed in 2024 after Clark moved to Idaho from San Diego, California.
“I started going to shows out here, and it inspired me to start another band because I used to have one when I was a kid,” Clark said. “I met [Rider] because he was playing in all the other bands. I was like, ‘Hey, would you be down to start a punk band?’ That’s how it started.“
The band’s lyrical ethos aligns with their instrumentals: fast, emotional, imperfect.
“I freestyle a lot of it, we practice it, I’ll listen to the recordings, and then I’ll just rewrite it,” Clark said. “It’s fun, we don’t play everything perfectly, and we’re not trying to be perfect.”
Speed and emotional release, rather than accuracy or neatness, are the band’s main concerns. According to Clark, the goal is to get people moving.
“It’s just more towards the community,” Clark said. “If you’re feeling down, you talk to people, come to the shows or listen to the music. Get the emotions out, and maybe someone else will feel those emotions too.”
Songs like “Suicidal”, “No Feeling” and “Not So Friendly” echo these sentiments, wrapping fast power chords and drum loops around Clark’s bleak lyrics.
“It’s just what comes out of my mouth, a lot of hate towards the world and America’s government,” Clark said.
Their brief 2025 EP, “A Comedy With Imagination”, followed a self-titled debut album released one year earlier. “Fuck The Government” and “Lousy Streets”, the first two tracks in the record, continue the band’s themes of social discontent.
“Being an anarchist — that’s probably been the trend since the ‘70s,” Clark said. “We’re just trying to keep it going and bring it back.”
For Plea Deal, the underground community offers people belonging and a way to release their emotions together.
Despite their local roots, Plea Deal envisions big goals on the horizon.
“My goal is for us to get to Europe,” Clark said. “The punk scene is good in America, but Germany or the United Kingdom… that’d be fun.”
Pink Soapy Vomit’s name doesn’t leave much up to the imagination. They combine death metal and sludge to explore eating disorders and transgender issues, packaged inside a flurry of distorted instrumentals.
“I listened to [death metal],” said the band’s guitarist, Emma Herring. “Nobody used that [genre], at least nobody that I knew of, to explore the themes I wanted to explore.”
Herring started the band alongside drummer Jacob Denkers after meeting at a local show. They were later joined by Griffin Richardson, vocalist, to work on their latest EP, “Exhibitions of Dysmorphia,” released in January 2025. Jackary Tiderman was the latest addition to the group, replacing a previous bassist.
Together, the band uses music to relate their experiences with bulimia and transgender struggles, according to Richardson.
The track “Samurai Sex Change” exemplifies the band’s personality: mixing fast and aggressive drumming with Richardson’s screaming vocals. Other songs like “Pearly Whites” and the self-titled opener alternate different tempos to create a diverse soundscape, all while never dropping the high-octane feel that characterizes metal as a genre.
“You gotta find a good idea, and then you gotta squeeze all the maximum juices,” Herring said of the recording process. “Then you find ideas that are similar, squeeze all those juices and then intermingle them together.”
As a public-facing group with transgender members, the band makes its struggles a foundational motif. They do not shy away from the protest and advocacy inherent in their music.
“They’re trying to get rid of us every day,” Tiderman said. “I think that’s protesting,” Denkers added.
Their identity does not mean, however, that they struggled to find a place within the local underground scene. To the contrary, the band said the community opens a creative space for anyone to engage with alternative music genres.
“[The underground community] provides a safe place for people,” Richardson said. “It’s supposed to be welcoming.”
“We don’t tolerate intolerance,” Tiderman added.
For Pink Soapy Vomit, the underground community represents a big family where diverse voices are welcome and personal expression is paramount.
They hope to continue their journey into the future.
“We’re gonna write some more songs,” Denkers said. “We’re probably gonna make an album, and then we’re hoping for a tour [in] fall of 2026 around the Pacific Northwest.”
Members of Boise’s underground music community believe it defies description.
“I’d say that there are a lot of subgenres,” Jake Santiago, a community member and music commentator, said. “I don’t think we could classify them as one.”
Nevertheless, bands like Plea Deal and Pink Soapy Vomit highlight a common thread: niche music communities offer a safe space for expression, belonging and acceptance.
These spaces allow people from different backgrounds to share their experiences and frustrations with their heavy instrumentals and abrasive sounds reflecting the world around them.
When asked about how to introduce newcomers to the scene, all bands and community members shared a common sentiment: go to local shows.
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Punk is American as apple pie.