Who is your favorite metal lyricist/vocalist?

[Philligan]

"Now I'm picking up the pieces of my broken heart"

Dont get me wrong, I love ATB but I found the lyrics extremely cheesy. The composition wasn't the best too.

QFT. I thought the lyrics on Rareform (Trent and Lee wrote all those) were a lot better, Cursing Akhenaten is so bad ass haha, makes me want to enslave humanity.

My personal favourites for lyrics are Devin Townsend, because he can set so many different moods, and Mat Bruso from Bury Your Dead, he writes some really interesting stuff - mostly Cover Your Tracks and Beauty and the Breakdown (fairy tales FTW). Mosh N Roll not so much still love that album though.

 

[Cynic]

Michael Barr is becoming one of my favorites.

 

[Stealthtastic]

Yeah, i was on my ipod, so it messed up, lol.




Not every line is going to be gold, but the opening line to "to carry you away"

Who we are ill never know, but when we spoke i knew you well.
You knew me well. You loved me through and through.
I never thought i would watch you leave us, from a room as a kid, i held so close.
I was a son, made up of sand, you were the wind that let me go.
Dont say (goodbye) so this is goodbye.
But im afraid to speak, ill live the story, of how you meant so much to me.

That line is just heart touching. Its about dealing with the death of a mother. Thats some powerful stuff. I think it paints a great mental picture, and really captivates the feeling.

To carry you away is hands down my favorite after the burial song, it is one of those few songs I just can't really listen to anymore because that was always the song I would listen to when depressed over the loss of my brother.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Trevor Strnad

"(Pretenders to the throne) Kneel before him, appalling wretched demon king. Praise be to us, his children, spawns of evil's reckoning. Doomed from inception, claiming fire as our home. Licked by flames our steel grows stronger to be forged in hate forevermore.

A hellish scorn quickly approaches violent climax. Infernal legions, the time nears when we'll strike. The shadows serving to enshroud us, our blackened hearts. Those forgotten looming just beyond their sight.

The blood of pariahs through our veins. Sin and Hell our mainstay, forever to remain. O' to ye wicked ones, an ode of blood, a reaper's song, demons born of man's sickest desire, those of the darkness spawned.

Fires of Hell, I stroke thee high through the open gates ever so wide, bury me in sin. The daggers have been raised, now let's begin. The margins of sanity blur into night. As one we'll move beyond the light, murder effortlessly without a tear, our motives to them never clear.

Damn this liar's world, we are the truth you've all awaited, impaling holy fallacy, the filthy blood of Christian seed. Akin to the looming serpent we've patiently anticpated.

The time to rise is upon us. My lord, I kneel before you, now paint me bloody red. Bathing in blasphemy, I beat the path that's traveled less. The forgotten, your minions, our souls are black. We are the thousands in the darkness awaiting to attack.

[Solo]

Infernal legions, their heads shall be your prize, trophies to our dominion of conquests only fantasized.

O' to ye wicked ones, an ode of blood, a reaper's song, demons born of man's sickest desire, those of the darkness spawned. Fires of Hell, I stroke thee high through the open gates ever so wide, bury me in sin. The daggers have been raised.

Oh the dance of death, she's a sweet one. To our victory we will drink"

How can I not?

 

[nsimonsen]

Karl Schubach from Misery Signals, not only is he one of the nicest dudes on the planet but he's untouchable as a vocalist for the Metalcore side of things.

Huge fan of Travis Richter's work in The Human Abstract as well, Digital Veil was incredible. It's never easy to write vocal parts over incredibly busy and technical arrangements, huge props to him.

 

[fps]

It was Maynard but he lost it on the last Tool record.

The lyrics on Decapitated's Carnival Is Forever were not done by a band member, but they are phenomenal, fresh, devoid of cliche, insightful, very surprising.

 

[kunalbatra]

Warrel Dane.

That guy is a genius.

 

[ByDesign]

Ian Kenny of Karnivool

 

[Force]

Vocalist choice is damn near impossible. Anyone in the vein of Bruce Dickinson, Tobias Sammet, Ralf Scheepers............

But my favourite lyricist is easy, Neil Peart. Rush isn't metal but they are gods.

 

[CannibalKiller]

Vocalists- Devin Townsend, Michael Åkerfeldt, M Shadows, Dani Filth, Corey MuthaFuckin Taylor.
Lyricists- Corey MF Taylor:

"Come on down and see the idiot right here
too fucked to beg and not afraid to care
Whats the matter with calamity anyways?
right? get the fuck out of my face
understand I cant feel anything
it isn't like I wanna sift through the decay
I feel like a wound
and like I got a fucking gun against my head
you live when I'm dead."

Devin Townsend:
Say goodbye, you know I've tried...
But now the time to mourn has died.
It's cold inside the worm...nothing ever bothers me now.

Lady Vagine, you know I'm dying...
But to my surprise, the punishment subsides.
It's cold inside, my son.

Nothing ever bothers you now.

Dani Filth:
Earth and sea cower from my screams
As I climb into the skies
Atop sins towered heaven high for me
From whence I see no reason why
I should not smite with vengeance
And hurl thieves down from paradise
For storms before were as nothing more
Than a breeze next to this night...

Trent Reznor:
I hurt myself today,
To see if I'd still feel.
I focus on the pain,
The only thing that's real.
The needle tears a hole,
The old familiar sting;
Try to kill it all away,
But I remember everything.

What have I become,
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know,
Goes away in the end.
You could have it all,
My empire of dirt.
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt...

Dez Fafara:
She brings me nails and turpentine
All of this time the girl was mine
I am in love like a rusted dog
All of the time my head in the fog

Cat's in the corner, dog's on the floor
Phone keeps ringing, she's asking for more
The spaces between places
I'm not worthy, leave me alone...

 

[tacotiklah]

Mikael Akerfeldt hands down. Proof of his superior growling mixed with great lyrics is in the song Blackwater Park:

Confessor
Of the tragedies in man
Lurking in the core of us all
The last dying call for the ever lost
Brief encounters, bleeding pain

Lepers coiled neath the trees
Dying men in bewildered soliloquies
Perversions bloom round the bend
Seekers, lost in their quest
Ghosts of friends frolic under the waning moon

And of course his clean singing with awesome lyrics as heard in To Rid the Disease:

There's nobody here, there's nobody near
I try not to care, dead eyes always stare
Let these matters be, don't trust what you see
Take hold of your time, step into the line

There's innocence torn from its maker
Stillborn the trust in you
This failure has made the creator
So would you tell him what to do (would you)


I also love Chuck Schuldiner's lyrics and I loved how his singing kept getting better as he went (The Philosopher is a good one):
Do you feel what I feel, see what I see, hear what I hear
There is a line you must draw between your dream world and reality
Do you live my life or share the breath I breathe
Lies feed your judgement of others
Behold how the blind lead each other
The philosopher
You know so much about nothing at all
[Lead: Chuck]

Ideas that fall under shadows of theories that stand tall
Thoughts that grow narrow upon being verbally released
Your mind is not your own,
what sounds more mentally stimulating is how you make your choice
So you preach about how I'm supposed to be, yet you don't you know your own
sexuality
Lies feed your judgement of others
Behold how the blind lead each other
The philosopher
You know so much about nothing at all



Flesh and the Power it Holds:
I told you once but I will say it again
when you live the flesh it is the beginning
of the end
it will take you in
it will spit you out
behold the flesh and the power it holds
passion is a poison laced with pleasure bitter sweet
one of many faces that hide deep beneath
it will take you in
it will spit you out
behold the flesh and the power it holds
touch, taste, breathe, consumed
deja-vu. already knew from the first encounter
but know I know to let go of words to speak no more
like a wind upon your face you can't see it
but you know it's there, when beauty shows
its ugly face, just be prepared.

[Solo Schuldiner]

Passion burns like fire carried by the wind
the end of a time, a time to begin
it builds you up one way and tears
you right back down, a time to begin
the end of a time.

Touch, taste, breathe, consumed.

 

[Scar Symmetry]

Eric Kalsbeek of Textures, in my opinion the best vocalist and lyricist the genre has ever known.

Here's my only dream - While I breathe dopamine
My creature's cunning
It walks the road between sense and amphetamine
Clear and ominous presence - Seraphs belong only to the ones who wait
I can feel it combine me - Merging all of my instincs with the withering beast
We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows
Skies are ashen, dim summer stench - uncontrollable aesthetics relapse
This twilight as dawn
Faster, suppressor, a silent storm approaching
Behold a black-chalked figurine - it speaks to me in tongues
I resist my dislocation
Automatic integration of forgotten flaws and imperfections
Amplification of this endless
These words form a knife of cold
And pierce the heart of the unloving echoes of departure
My will bends as a twig in the wind
Decipher unwritten laws of coded existence - I'm naked in the cold
Strangely amused by conformity - Caught with a strange desire
I'm both promise and lie
Build to receive - Conductor of hours - A clockwork
A grim device built to undo - Erase a lifetime - Creator of ends
Now - death sets a thing significant, the eye had hurried by
Years become a second when thoughts collide with memories
The stitches stopped themselves
And then it was put among the dust
The center of self - Equation of life
The less you resist - The less you're erased
I fear the ghosts of all that would be - There is no closure
I heed the call of millions of others who fight the giant
One second alone has brought me thunder

 

[Chriphery]

Dunno if Alter Bridge Class as metal, if so, Myles Kennedy, If not, as much as people (including myself) bang on about Periphery, Spencer Sotelo.

 

[ridner]

Ben Falgoust from Soilent Green/Goatwhore is a great lyricist

 

[ChronicConsumer]

Mikee Goodman of SikTh!

 

[SuperMutant]

Mikael Akerfeldt, Frank Mullen, Jonas Renkse, Peter Tägtgren, Chuck Schuldiner, Warrel Dane, Joe Duplantier and Jon Oliva.

 

[Ghoul-7]

Definitely Joe Duplantier from Gojira. That shit is really deep

AND Corey Taylor, the great big mouth himself

 

[kamello]

Duplantier, Townsend (listening to Life right now, that song always lift me up), Akerfeldt, Rody Walker (he write a few lyrics, though my favourites are from Arif), Sotelo, Till Linderman (he has a few Love oriented songs that I really like, although some of them are a bit twisted ) and Chuck Shuldiner

 

[revclay]

+1 to all of the people who have said Akerfeldt, Maynard and Jonas. While his voice is divisive, I think Jacob Bannon is brilliant lyrically and vocally.



Lyrics:
These floods of you are unforgiving
Pushing passed me spilling through the banks
And I fall
Faster than light and faster than time
That's how memory works
At least in the dark where I'm searching for meaning
When I'm just searching for something
I want out
Out of every awkward day
Out of every tongue tied loss
I want out
Out of the burdening nightsweats
Out of the rising seas of blood
Lost in you like saturday nights
Searching the streets with bedroom eyes
Just dying to be saved
Run on girl, run on

 

[Black Mamba]

Dave Mustaine, Phil Anselmo, Layne Staley, Jerry Cantrell, and David Gold.