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I voted Antioch Arrow on this poll, but I really could've voted for Heroin or VSS, too.
The VSS played one of the greatest live shows I ever witnessed at the Epicenter Zone in San Francisco in either late 1996 or early '97. The Make Up also played that show, and I was so bored by the "Everybody, say YEAH!" contrived situationist pantherisms that came off as lame as a strutting 80's hair band or even Neil Diamond. But the VSS just transformed the room with the bleak tones, aggression, and their DIY light-show which shot light under Sonny from the floor up.
I credit Heroin for changing the hardcore game. They sorta retroactively brought Black Flag within the realm of "influences of emocore." I was way into the HC-emo back in those days, and I was always floored by that band from the moment I heard that first 7-inch. But really, what they were doing was setting the table for the whole HC/emo scene to blow up.
By 1992, there were already dozens or hundreds of bands just doing that octave-chord, falling-forward, back-to-the-audience bullshit that sounded pretty good when I was 18, but by 22, I was so ready for something not so formulaic. Heroin showed me that guts and fury could be channeled into it, and that being kinda noisy or fucked up could be welcome, too.
Antioch Arrow took emo-core into a more spazzy and wild creative direction...they collided everything from goth and other art-rock and even freakin' Vaudeville vamping with the HC/emo on that first 12-inch. And by "Gems of Masochism," you couldn't hear the emo roots at all.
A lot of the leaders of "noiserock" or experimental rock or artpunk or whatever come from bands of this particular milieu. The best Gravity stuff was like missing link evolutionary weirdpunk.
Swing Kids are kinda the weak link outta that lineup, I think. First record's good, but the rest doesn't hold up well after all these years, I believe. I never saw them live, though, and to talk to San Diegans my age, they all swear they were great...so I dunno.
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