Heavier Bands that actually sing?
 

Are there any heavy bands out there where the singer actually sings instead of just screaming? I love the sound of so many bands when I first hear them and then the screaming begins. Five Finger Death Punch being a prime example. Fantastic sound and then the screaming. I just don't get it.

Opeth, Taproot, Dredg are a few examples-

There are a lot of others I cant think of off the top of the head, but the current trend seems to revolve around a soft whiny voice backed by repeated agonized screams. I agree, its annoying as shit.. Like emo and death metal had a bastard child.. And the damn thing is grotesque.

May not be quite what you are looking for as far as heavy, but I've been listening to a lot of Kamelot lately. The lead can definitely sing and they can get heavy, though how much varies from song to song.

Deicide

They growl instead of screaming.

That's like asking for a rapper who doesn't have a posse.

I don't know about that. I always feel like Pantera's heavy on Vulgar Display and while there is some screaming, it's not like today's stuff. I don't feel like Disturbed screams like crazy either.

Not really bands I follow anymore but ..

cKy has some heavier stuff with no screaming.

Killswitch Engage has a lot of singing.

Hell that might be all I remember anymore.

Not sure how heavy you are looking for but....

Queensryche

Dredg was a good mention by someone else. Opeth rocks too and Killswitch Engage.

Some others include Lacuna Coil, Machine Head, Coheed and Cambria, Thrice, Haste The Day, God Forbid, Circa Survive, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Whole Wheat Bread.

That's a range of stuff that runs the gamut, but some of it should work.

Actually...

Evanesence


JUST KIDDING!

You're my Immortal.

Lift up the covers on the bed, baby, because:

I'M GOOOOOING UNDERRRRRRR

She can sing though :D

aka screamo

+1 on Thrice.

It's a fine line between screaming and singing.

How about Bang Camaro?

How about Hammerfall? Or something like Stratovarius minus the keyboards? (not sure what that would equal though)

I'm thinking harder edged Scandanavian power metal bands based on what you intially asked, but maybe I'm misinterpreting "heavy" or for that matter "actually sings".

I was kind of bothered that I couldn't actually rattle off several answers easily once I thought about the question for a while.

This made me think of Black Tide. And Trivium (when they sing not scream).
Possibly Jet Black Stare? And even Black Stone Cherry at times.

+1 on Trivium.

Some of the Scandinavian bands that fit that are:

Circus Maximus
Firewind
Nightwish
Symphony X
The German Band - Vanden Plas

An American band in the same style would be Cellador

Heart....

All the European symphonic metal bands like Nightwish that have a female as the primary vocalist - Within Temptation being my favorite, but there's also After Forever, Angtoria, Sirenia, Stream of Passion, Epica, Tristania, Xandria, etc. Tomera is an excellent female fronted prog metal band with jazz influences, if you're looking for something a bit different (almost like a jazzy extreme metal version of Dream Theater fronted by a female). And then there's Therion, which uses both male and female opera singers. On the male front, Symphony X-type bands include Rhapsody of Fire, Kamelot, Avantasia, Silentium, etc. On the "space metal" front, there's Ayreon, who uses a combination of well-known male and female singers for his albums. The Human Equation, a 2-disc story with James LaBrie as the primary vocalist, is amazing.

If you're looking for "old school" metal, Municipal Waste is a great thrash band, as are Evile and Hacride out of France. And of course, there's my personal favorite, DEATH ANGEL! Two great new albums since reuniting. And Testament and Megadeth have had strong releases in the last few years as well.

Of the popular new stuff, I've found Lamb of God to come the closest to mid-90s Pantera. In fact, at times they try a bit too much to sound like Pantera, but mostly Southern Trendkill-era and not the early stuff where Phil actually sings.

Then there's the stoner metal stuff, offshoots of Kyuss but heavier than Queens of the Stone Age, like Taint, The Sword, Fu Manchu, and Kylesa.

On the emo side are Protest the Hero. I love the vocals, but some do not. Music is insanely good, though.

Another little-known band with decent (but different) vocals is Volbeat, a European band. They mix roots rock n roll with metal, and a vocalist that sounds similar to danzig/elvis. A very bizarre combination that works. Awesome riffing throughout. Check out the song Hallelujah Goat on YouTube to get a good idea of what they sound like.

The growly/screaming/death metal "cookie monster" stuff turned me off for years, but I've learned to accept it. Opeth is one of my favorite bands now, and the newer albums have more clean vocals than not, but the death vocals are still there. The music's too good to give it up just because of the vocals, though. Not sure if Gojira is too far on the growly side for yo, but they kick ass, too.

If you're looking for truly melodic metal, Europe is the best place to look. Also, some of the indie metal bands out there now don't have the real gruff vocals and are getting some attention (like the Sword). Other than that, it's slim pickins for the old metal vocal style.

I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I'm missing, but that's a decent list off the top of my head.

Try The Agonist

Heavy brutal growls with some a very nice mix of clean melodic vocals.Lately im more into Spider, Status Quo and stuff like that but for some reason The Agonist gets to me in a good way

Yeah, i just refuse to give it the distinction.

Paradise lost, was pleasantly surprised when I discovered them a while ago.

If you're looking for something retro, like the 80s stuff try Savatage.

I probably listen to these bands more than anything right now. Some of those women have amazing voices and they do a great job incorporating them into the music.

All That Remains is heavy and they mix screaming with alot of melodic choruses. Stonesour is pretty good too.

Why don't we just rename this "The Shitty Music Thread"?

Troll.

This coming from the guy who would've sucked the biggest hack in music history off. Fuck Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. His suicide opened the door for a band that plays good music, the Foo Fighters, so for that I am ever so grateful.

And maybe if you didn't spend so much time listening to shitty music, you'd have improved your stick skills so you didn't have to duck out of the EBFL in shame.

Better than having to listen to them.

The Foo Fighters? LOL give me a break. For someone that stupidly yells out "I LOVE INDIE SPOILED BRAT WHITE KID RAP AND HARDCORE", you sure did pick a shitty band to get behind. Not to mention the creation of the Foo Fighters pillaged one of the actually good bands of the 90's: Sunny Day Real Estate

"WAS SOMEONE GETTING THE BEST! THE BEST! THE BEST! OF YOUUUU!"

God that's awful. Kill yourself before you reproduce.

Don't you have a Mars Volta concert to go to or something? I know you're eagerly refreshing your hotmail account waiting to see if Urban Outfitters is going to hire you but it's just not going to happen.

So why don't you go back to listening to "Blue Monday" by Orgy and stay the fuck out of this thread.

God I hope you get mugged, pistol whipped, and encased in ice next time you actually go to Detroit, you suburban pillsbury pussy.

Why don't you go make me a Pizza career man?

well we should definitely rename it to the music-elitist snob thread now. or end the hijack, at least.

Hey I'm not the one on welfare...oh excuse me..you still live with your parents, so it's just "unemployment".

Just shit out a couple of kids and finish this story already.

On the bright side, we did manage to cover a pretty good range of possibilities about whatever rowech was looking for.

Sorry, let me get this thread back on track with something I would never listen to by choice:




I made it a minute. Oh man it's so cheesy and awful.

Found a band called MasterPlan I like the sound of.

If what you're liking is from the era where Jorn Lande was the singer then by all means find his other work. And he's recently be confirmed as returning to the band. In addition to solo projects, he also did a couple of albums with Symphony X singer Russell Allen under the name Allen/Lande and he also contributed some vocals to the last album from Avantasia (side project for Edguy front man Tobias Sammett).

I associate him with being a little lighter sound than what I thought you might be looking for, so you might also find something you'd enjoy scattered among works featured at MelodicRock.com - MRCD5 Out Soon!

They increasingly have coverage of harder sounding acts with good vocals as well as standbys like Joe Lynn Turner, Lou Gramm, etc.

It's a little lighter than I was looking for but the problem is I wasn't finding any of the bands folks were mentioning all that great. What I'm looking for just might not be out there.

Have you messed around with the "bands like this" feature on last.fm ?

It's definitely not perfect but I've run across quite a few bands that fit my tastes just by plugging in the target artist and chasing my way around the connections it makes.

edit to add: Heck, since you've already been through quite a few suggestions, I'll go ahead and throw Theocracy out there for you to try. They're not big stars by any means but we've enjoyed the heck out of them here (in no small part I'm sure because they're a very rare thing: a band from Athens, GA worth listening to)

I really like All that Remains which was mentioned before and I am a big fan of In This Moment also like the music and love Maria Brink also.

Killswitch engage all the way

I haven't heard of a single band recommended in this thread.

Hello, I am 100 years old!

Funny thing for me is that before I found these bands, I think the only female vocalist I owned a CD of was Tori Amos. Now I'm all over these bands. Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation is my favorite.