Singing > Screaming/Growling?

[toolsound]

Do you ever wish that some metal bands had an actual singer?

I dig the growling and screaming when it's done right, but sometimes it's really bad, or doesn't seem to fit the song as well. For example, I like listening to Dimmu Borgir sometimes, but I really don't like their lead vocalist at all. When I first heard their bass player sing though, I thought, "Damn! Why can't he be the permanent vocalist? He would be perfect!"

This is just one example, but I've felt this way about other bands too.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

Oh lord...LOCK IT DOWN

 

[yingmin]

It depends on the context. I think Mikael Akerfeldt, for example, does a pretty appropriate mixture of screaming and growling. I can't think of any parts where I've really wished he was singing instead of growling. It does happen, though.

The flipside of this is that I've noticed that I am a lot more tolerant of bad screaming/growling than I am of bad singing. For example, I think the vocals in Dying Fetus are pretty bad, but they really don't detract significantly from my enjoyment of the music. The same is not true for bad singers. I think Anders Friden from In Flames is a great screamer, but a terrible singer, and the prevalence of singing in their newer material is part of why I don't enjoy it as much. But then we also get into another problem: when bands that used to scream all the time start singing, the music usually changes drastically to accomodate it. Singing has certain demands that screaming and growling do not, in terms both of the melodicism of the music and for the sonic density. Take Soilwork as another example: the music on Chainheart Machine is a lot more frantic and dense than that of, say, Natural Born Chaos. The music doesn't crowd out the vocals, and the vocals don't outshine the music. As Bjorn started singing more and more, the guitarists had to leave more and more space for him, and simplify their guitar parts.

 

[BurialWithin]

Oh lord...LOCK IT DOWN

 

[troyguitar]

Singing is not metal.

 

[Arteriorrhexis]

Do you ever wish that some metal bands had an actual singer?

I dig the growling and screaming when it's done right, but sometimes it's really bad, or doesn't seem to fit the song as well. For example, I like listening to Dimmu Borgir sometimes, but I really don't like their lead vocalist at all. When I first heard their bass player sing though, I thought, "Damn! Why can't he be the permanent vocalist? He would be perfect!"

This is just one example, but I've felt this way about other bands too.

Too bad Vortex sucks in Dimmu... He's perfect in Borknagar more like.

 

[BurialWithin]

The only bands i can tolerate , in metal of course, that sing are protest the hero and.........i dont know..

 

[JohnIce]

I'd agree with yingmin on most of his post. I'm not really into any kind of growling/screaming, I can definately deal with it if the rest of the music is good, and it can be awesome to highlight a certain part of a song (ex. Day 3: Pain by Ayreon). But I prefer regular singing in most cases. I also find it a lot more challenging to write vocal melodies, because it requires more than a guitar riff and lyrics. At the risk of being lynched, I think doing a screaming or growling verse is kind of an easy way out. Feel free to disagree though.

 

[vampiregenocide]

Depends on the song. Sometimes you might listen to a track and think 'ooh some clean vocals would really work better there', and vice versa.

That being said, I have heard vocalists scream over parts I thought would otherwise not work.

 

[Doomcreeper]

Do you ever wish that some metal bands had an actual singer?

I dig the growling and screaming when it's done right, but sometimes it's really bad, or doesn't seem to fit the song as well. For example, I like listening to Dimmu Borgir sometimes, but I really don't like their lead vocalist at all. When I first heard their bass player sing though, I thought, "Damn! Why can't he be the permanent vocalist? He would be perfect!"

This is just one example, but I've felt this way about other bands too.

You might like Arcturus then, I'm pretty sure that's the band I'm thinking of that has Vortex doing vocals, some songs have a lot of clean vocals that you might enjoy.

 

[SerratedSkies]

Singing and Screaming > Screaming > Singing




Let's look into Opeth's most recent album, "Watershed" for this one. The album opens up with "Coil", a softer, accoustic bid with solid Akerfeldt singing, as well as a featured female artist. Great track, but all around, it lacks something, which most would agree on. The second track, "Heir Apparent" features a lengthy epic of nothing but demonic growls that have made Akerfeldt a known voice in the metal world. In my personal opinion, although I seriously enjoy this song, it lacks something, once again. Now, for track three; "The Lotus Eater". I'm not here to pick and choose favorites off the album, I'm here to explain the dynamics of combining the two sets of vocals. Tracks 1 and 2 are both brilliant works of art, but "The Lotus Eater", from start to finish, is way more dynamic, and has an overall "fuller" feel to the song. Say what you want, but showing either "Coil" or "Heir Apparent" to a person who's never heard Opeth would be somewhat of a wrong first impression. "The Lotus Eater", on the otherhand, really shows the bands full capabilities, as it drags you through twists and turns of so many different sounds (Not to say the previous tracks disinclude variation). You need to have something for everyone, and in Opeth's case, it's literally the best of both worlds.

 

[Anthony]

Christian Avelstam <3

 

[SerratedSkies]

Christian Avelstam <3

Quoting the fuck out of this.
+One Million

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

I pretty much hate clean singing. I dig clean parts like in Keep of Kalessin, or Emperor, or any black metal band that does it occasionally, but other than that I don't really dig it. I listen to some power metal (Iced Earth and Blind Guardian, etc, not super cheesy stuff), but it's usually because of the guitar work.

It's personal taste. I kind of dig Vortex's singing in Dimmu, but he only has the kind of whiny tone you hear, he doesn't vary it at all.

 

[Empryrean]

Actually, some bands would sound much better if the singer/screamer could sing as well as they scream, or scream as well as they sing. I sometimes wish the guy from Black Dhalia would scream for Abigail Williams. The song "Departure" seems like such a great example of it.

 

[Variant]

Most metal bands have a singer... the death/grind/black metal knock-off thing is just in vogue right now. Dig a little, you'll find egads of hard rock and metal bands with stellar singers.

The worst thing about the everybody growls fad, is that it's really a disservice to the bands who started it. Back in the day everybody had their own style, you could tell Barney Greenway from Jeff Walker, John Tardy from Chris Barnes, Chuck Shuldiner from Glen Benton... nowadays (while not speaking for all dirty vocalists) there's a plague of homogeneity with respect to the approach.

 

[Jogeta]

Christian Avelstam <3

this + Speed from Soilwork and Devin Townsend from Strapping Young Lad

 

[pink freud]

The problem with singing in metal is all the guys sound like they're emasculated, and any metal band with a chick singer (vs chick screamer) can be consistantly dubbed "Snow Whitetallica."

What would be nice is a metal band with a singer who had more of a baritone focus.

 

[rocksteady80]

i agree

 

[ARC7789]

Nevermore...... why on a 7 string site wasn't this mentioned immediatly?