Inspired by this post, I wanted to make a post asking about your favorite metal bands with women in them and maybe your favorite release from them too.
For me, that’d be Crypta. They’re a Brazilian Death Metal band made up of only women. Their Shades of Sorrow album is absolutely incredible with some really mean vocals and great riffing.
I discovered Brutus a few weeks ago. Stefanie Mannaerts is the vocalist and plays the drums simultaneously. The power in her voice while smashing the hell out of her drums… incredible. I was blown away when I saw a Video of her performance and realized it. What Have We Done is probably my favorite.
My bits:
Amaranthe
Angtoria
Cinnamon Babe
Dorothy
Nightwish
Venus 5
Arkona - the best folk metal Hulder - great black metal
I’ll be seeing Arkona again in < two weeks!
Cradle of filth
In this moment
Kitty (not so much anymore, was old band)
In This Moment has some amazing covers sprinkled throughout their catalogue.
In The Air Tonight (slow burn, just trust) We Will Rock You Call Me
Looks like they covered “Surrender” too, but I havent listend to that one yet.
Oh man, right now it’s Spirit Box, the Warning, Castle Rat, Crypta, Lizzies, and of course Unleash the Archers. Eleine can’t be forgotten, even though they’re not in heavy rotation for me. Kittie is in that same range where their most recent album is just old enough that it’s fallen out of heavy rotation for me
If you wanna step to more of a hard rock end of things, Halestorm is awesome.
If you consider Linkin Park in the same category, Emily has been killing it (but any asshat that whines at me about that is just getting blocked because it was a stupid fucking thing to begin with), so they would deserve a mention even though they aren’t historically a female fronted band, and folks love to argue about them being metal at all.
Going back, Lita Ford rode the line between hard rock and metal, as did Joan Jett. Both from the Runaways which was the all girl hard rock band. Vixen may have been better barely hard rock, but they deserve more respect than they get.
That’s just the stuff that’s in my main playlist of harder rock and metal right now. There’s a ton of great bands out there that are woman led.
And hell, you can’t really talk about that without at least giving a nod to Doro Pesch, and even Wendy O. They stand out among some of the earlier examples
But, right now, there’s so many good to great bands that are female led, or even all women. It’s an embarrassment of riches.
Fuck yeah Crypta. Fernanda has a monstrous stage presence.
Sadly I just read that Jéssica di Falchi (guitar) left the band the other day.
Castrator is an all-women death metal band that fucking rips everything apart. Merlin has a female singer, vocals are so harsh I listened to it for years before knowing it was a woman.
TL/DR: Elena Siegman’s vocals for the Call of Duty: Zombies soundtracks are some of my favorite metal vocals ever.
Not that Call of Duty needs more publicity obviously, but I love the story of how Kevin Sherwood and Elena Siegman got to be the names they are today behind the CoD: Zombies metal soundtrack.
Basically they were both audio engineers working on CoD: World at War and when it was decided (late into crunch time) that Zombies would be a featured bonus mode in the game, the directors wanted to add musical easter eggs into each of the maps, both the one planned for release and the 3 expansions.
Sherwood and Siegman got to work on writing the music and recording vocals respectively, but it wasn’t until they were working on the 3rd song that Sherwood decided they really ought to have some harsh, metal vocals in their metal soundtrack. He asked Siegman how they could manage that and if they would need distortion, and Siegman was like “I’ve never tried harsh vocals before, but I’m game.”
Thus, Beauty of Annihilation was born. Fast forward to later games and Siegman is a fan favorite element of the CoDZ series. My personal favorites are BoA, Coming Home, and Pareidolia
Maria Brink and In This Moment
In the realm of epic/symphonic metal you probably can’t throw a stone without hitting an amazing female vocalist. Simone Simons from Epica, Nightwish’s Floor Jansen, Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation), and Zora Cock for Blackbrariar are the first that come to mind.
For folk metal there’s Eluveitie with two members and Folkstone with I think one.
Very worth mentioning is Alyssa and her harsh vocals, from Arch Enemy.
While she’s not been a member in a long while, I have to mention Vibeke Stene as the vocalist from Tristania, maybe my all time favorite.
For all female bands there’s Girlschool, and you could say Babymetal, even if they have more members playing with them I don’t know how permanent they are.
Others that I know of but haven’t really listened much by would be Jinjer and Halestorm.
That’s what I can think of off the top of my head, but there’s so much more.
Edit: I almost forgot but I have to add: Amy Lee from Evanescence and Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil.
I’d add Adrienne Cowan from Seven Spires and Melissa Bonny from Ad Infinitum to that list. But, as you said, in symphonic metal you’d be hard pressed to find a band without an amazing female vocalist.
Adrienne Cowan from Seven Spires and Melissa Bonny from Ad Infinitum
Saw them last year with Kamelot, it was an amazing show. I didn’t know them before but I’m a fan now!
Arch Enemy fucking rocks. Angela and Alyssa are both badass and are probably my first time seeing a woman do harsh vocals like that.
Lmfao Arch Enemy was the first band that made me go “woah wait that’s a woman?”
Angela Gossow was a beast, glad they found a very suitable replacement when she left.
I saw the “Women in Metal” title and thought this would be a thread about women in trade jobs (i.e. metalworking).
Adding one more: Battle Beast. Noora Louhimo’s voice just remained imprinted in my brain. Can’t really pick a favorite release.
removed by mod
undead corporation and imperial circus dead decadence
Late to the party but my recommendation is Oceans of Slumber
Ohhh Oceans of Slumber are so good
