So SpectreNectar made a blog about some Canadian (if that stupid word filter is still on, then eskimo = "cana dian" and "that cold place" = "cana da") bands, and I'm now inspired to write a blog about music. Specifically, metal bands with female vocalists, who scream. I absolutely love it, and I thought I'd share a list.
This is far from a "complete" list, but these are some good ones that I happen to have. I'm not a huge fan of girls just singing (or any metal with clean vocals, really), so it's a pretty small list. I'll list them first, and then give a sample of one of their songs. I won't really go into the history of the band or anything though. Lastly, I should clarify that half of these aren't really all that metal, but c'mon…It's a girl screaming…That makes up for the way the music is played.(Band - Singer)Arch Enemy - Angela GossowIwrestledabearonce - Krysta CameronOtep - Otep ShamayaCerebral Bore - Simone "Som" PlujimersCircle the Sky - AshKittie - Morgan LanderStraight Line Stitch - Alexis BrownThe Agonist - Alissa White-GluzWalls of Jericho - Candace KucsulainOrphan Hate - Sina NiklasHoly Moses - Sabina ClassenPicture me Broken - Layla Brooklyn AlmanEths - Candice ClotAstarte - Maria "Tristessa" KolokouriLight This City - Laura NicholCadaveria - Cadaveria (that's the name she goes by)cmkin29 - Kin LinArch EnemyWhen you think "female screaming", this is probably the first band you would think of. Definately the most commonly cited band for this sort of thing. Nemesis:IwrestledabearonceThe band has a sense of humour, but it's got a lot of clean vocals, and electronic stuff, which I'm not too fond of. It's definately one of those "not quite metal" bands, but it's still pretty good.You know that ain't them dogs' real voices:OtepOtep is one of the few nu metal bands that I really like (death to most nu metal! *shakes fist*). Her albums feature really heavy songs, some softer songs, and even some spoken word "poetry" (stories about murder and brutality, basically). About a third of her lyrics are really good too, talking about abuse and stuff. She has a really good vocal range to top it all off - throaty raspy screams, shrieks, growls, whispers, clean vocals…Fists Fall:Cerebral BoreThis is a pretty new band (well, they're actually almost 7 years old, but they only got the vocalist, and released their debute album, in 2011), featuring "Som" on vocals. She was around on youtube (her channel. You'll have to go back maybe 20 videos to get to her older stuff) doing awesome vocal covers of Dying Fetus and stuff before she joined the band. Most of the other bands I mentioned are on the cleaner side of metal, but Som is much more on the grind/death side of metal, with really deep and throaty (exhale?) screams, and even does pig squeals. And on top of it all, she was only 19 when she did the album (and was doing the youtube stuff before that). Speaking of youtube, there's another awesome youtube channel singer down below.The Bald Cadaver (she does some pig squeals from 1:23 and 1:29):Circle the SkySpeaking of young, Circle the Sky is an Australian band (a lot of good metalcore stuff comes from Australia too. Spectre was on a Canadian kick, or something…He should look at Australia next), with a 16 year old singer. "The band emerged in 2006, shocking crowds by the petite young lady producing brutal vocals". And they are pretty brutal.Shark Etiquette:KittieThis (all girl) Canadian band was probably the first band with a female screamer that I had ever heard. She's got a good scream (raspy), but sadly she does a lot of clean vocals, so I don't listen to them too much.Cut Throat:Straight Line StitchA female screamer is pretty rare, and a black one is even rarer! A little Asian girl is probably the rarest (further down)Black Veil:The AgonistAnother Canadian bandThank You Pain:Walls of JerichoA Trigger Full of Promises:Orphan HateWhen she's not doing her clean vocals, she has a really good, deep, growls.This Child (skip to 0:43 to start the screaming)Holy MosesAlright, so I've only been alive for about 2/3s or how long this band has been alive. It was one of the first German thrash metal bands, and definately one of the first female fronted metal bands.World Chaos (live):Picture me BrokenI found out today that one of their songs is on Rock Band (DLC). My RB drum set is destroyed, so when I either get my Rold drum kit setup to play Rockband, or I buy a new kit, I definately have to buy it. I'm going to put that video on here to remind myself to buy it. It doesn't really showcase her screams until after the break down (you can skip to 2:30, then she goes between clean vocals, and screams)Dearest (I'm So Sorry):EthsA French metal band. The Agonist is from Montreal (in the Canadian province of Quebec, which is French), but Eths is French vocals, from France, and it is absolutely awesome.Crucif´reAstarteAn all female black metal band. Pretty awesome, eh SpectreNectar?Black Mighty GodsLight This CityI only recently found this band, so I haven't had much time to listen to them, but I love them so far.The Unwelcome SaviorCadaveriaThis is actually a pretty weak band to end on. Her "scream" is really more of a yell for the most part. This is also a band I just started listening to, and I haven't really found any songs that stand out yet in my casual listening to them. I'm not really a fan of Symphonic metal (there's never enough power and speed coming from the drums. T_T), and this band is just on the verge of being too symphonic for me.The Dream (skip to 2:15 for her "yelling")cmkin29Alright, this isn't a band, but if you head over to cmkin29's youtube channel, you can see this little Korean girl (I'm sure there's tons of Japanese girls who can do this too…'Cause Japan's weird like that) belting out covers from absolutely amazing singers/bands. From Lamb of God and Arch Enemy, to The Black Dahlia Murder and Job for a Cowboy.There's quite a few really good female vocalists on youtube, but I thought she was pretty cool.Cover of "Entombment of a Machine" by "Job For a Cowboy"And that's that. If there's other bands you know of, let me know, 'cause I love this. If you want more information, or other songs (or albums) to "get into" one of these bands, let me know.
Well my point was that sometimes there isn't anything more to it than that. Sometimes it is just some guy going blarraefsfshgbhcbhcvx. And I don't like listening to it.
…but sometimes they do actually have something to say, something to scream. And that's when it works.Even when it is just blarrefsfsgbhcbhcvx, sometimes it enhances the song (that's an opinion, of course).
Cannibal Corpse, for example, while having good lyrics, does get a good part of its awesome sound from the vocals.Cannibal Corpse is in my honest opinion, a complete shit band when compared to Death or At The Gates. Cannibal has always seemed to me as nothing more than a band in it for the imagery and controversy. oh but if you want to talk about pointless screaming, listen to Mayhem… seriously that crap makes extreme metal look bad - but you can't expect them too be that good after all they are suicidal murderering arsonists. if you need proof, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfCHwsp9bSccan't understand a damn thing nor does it sound good. (though might be partially due to horrid production)I find it real hard to comment on stuff about music. Personally, I don't like any genre of music at all.
I only like a few individual songs. If I were forced to choose a certain genre, I would probably choose classical though.I'm weird.I actually haven't listened to much Death, so I can't say much about that, but I do love At the Gates, and I don't think they're really all that comparable with Canibal Corpse. They're metal, but Canibal Corpse has a pretty different style.
I think of Cannibal Corpse as the dirtier side of metal, and At the Gates is closer to the cleaner side. I don't really know how to explain what I mean, but it's like when you hear grinding metal, and compare it to classical piano. The downtuned guitars make it feel mucky, while the frilly high notes on the piano feel clean and precise.I've also tried to get into Mayhem several times, due to both their history and their influence in black metal, but the vocals kind of pushed me away from it. For some reason I find it hard to get into the vocals of black metal in general.LAR: You should pick a genere, and listen to it until you love it. I recomend Miley Cyrus. Her first album made me very happy.I just find it hard to comment on modern music. I don't really like any bands these days, can't really pick any favorites for that reason. I have a lot of respect for soundtracks and some indie songs, though.
@Firestorm
Really?Also, I thought she was Hannah Montana when she sang stuff.LAR: Half really. Her "Breakout" album was my "poppy happy" album for a while. I don't listen to much happy music, and "breakout" was my numbingly happy album for a few months.
I actually don't recomend letting that album be your "learning to love music" album, haha.A lot of people like music for the lyrics (maybe not you, if your possible favorite is classical), so if you learn the lyrics to some songs ('cause a lot of times you kind of miss the lyrics or the message the first time you listen to the song), you might feel a connection with the song/singer. Then, you find more songs by the band that you like, and then other bands that are similar, and so on.Kilin: I saw a thread last night on animageboardthatshallnotbenamed where a guy was asking for good anime, and cited a bunch of old anime, and was complaining about how current anime is all school girls and love stories. Then, someone pointed out that there is a lot of great anime still going, and that he's probably just looking at the current popular anime, and that he should go ask on a community of hardcore anime watchers, and they'll tell you what's good right now.There's a lot of good current music (but most of it is crap), you may just have to actively look for it, rather than passively sit and listen to what "society" presents to you, and then declare that you don't like any bands at all. I don't mean this insultingly, it's just that most people don't do that with music. It's especially hard if you don't really know what kind of music you like (like LAR). I liked Linkin Park when I was 12, so I tried to find bands like it. Then I started to like the screaming, so I hunted for bands with screaming like Chester Bennington, and I stumbled into all these pop punk/post hardcore bands, a couple years before the whole "emo" movement. Now a days, if you show me "current" bands in this vein, like Black Veil Brides or something, I'll be like "ugh", this current stuff sucks. But there's still good bands like…Umm…Hmm *scans through my mp3 player here at work*…most of these similar bands are either disbanded bands, or bands that have turned to crap in the past 5 years…But there's still a lot of good stuff out there, if you look past the crap.Just find either a band that you like, or elements of a band or song that you like, and start digging from there. You'll find great lists like this blog post (well, maybe…I don't know if any list can be as great as this one), full of music that you might love. Or, ask around. Talk to people with similar musical tastes. Use Last.fm. Look at what other fans of your music are listening to, etc…Spectre: The attitudes were mostly what stopped me from even wanting to get into Black Metal, when I first started listening to metal. At the time, I thought the image was kind of cool, but I absolutely hated Marilyn Manson (I've gained a little bit of respect for the way he handles himself, but still hate the guy overall), and they sort of represented his attitutde to me. I kind of feel like punching myself now, for making it sound like I'm almost comparing Marilyn Manson to black metal. >_<It's not even that I don't think there are any good songs out there. There are, even if only a few. It's just that I have different tastes.
I'm sure there's a bands out there with the exact same taste as you, or that will show you a kind of music that you didn't even know you could taste. =P