Women in Metal
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.
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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.
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'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.
Saw them last year with Kamelot, it was an amazing show. I didn't know them before but I'm a fan now!
Jinjer is pretty badass. The vocals are top notch in both ends of the spectrum.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to see Jinjer! Seriously impressive vocals, and absolutley one of my favorite female metal vocalists.
Hear, hear!
Spiritbox
Jinjer
Make Them Suffer
Arch Enemy
Lucrecia
Poppy
Within Temptation
Babymetal
Harper
Those are the ones I listen to, in no particular order
If you like baby metal try hanabie
Can't wait to see what Harper does, she has so much potential. Also a lot of pressure I suppose.
Babymetal comes to mind, but I also want to shout out Sandra Nasić of the Guano Apes for her appearance on Apocalyptica's Path Vol. 2. Also highschool me would kill me if I didn't mention Nightwish. Tarja Turenen was a formative part of my music taste, and 10th man Down, Kinslayer, Dead Gardens, and Creek Mary's Blood all still sit in my favorites list
This song came to mind for me too. Cult is Apocalyptica's best album, but that song basically ruined my ability to enjoy it as it was made because putting it on straight-up I'm immediately disappointed by the lack of vocals in track 1.
There was another track from that album that they reworked to add a guest vocalist to, I think track 8, but that one didn't hit me as an improvement over the original.
Ghost Love Score, the live at Wacken version, is top tier material.
I feel like "Once" is the album where filler tracks started creeping into Nightwish, but "Ghost Love Score" is the Nightwish song. It's spectacular.
Jinger band with Tatiana Shmayluk as vocalist is crazy good.
Great pick. Pisces is the song that got me into them.
Some of my favorites are:
Delain (who I'm seeing live tonight!)
Nightwish
Xandria
Epica
Jinjer
Arch Enemy
The Agonist
Crypta
Blackbriar
Cellar Darling
Butcher Babies
Spiritbox
Eleine
In This Moment
Nervosa
Frantic Amber
Within Temptation
Infected Rain
No Lacuna Coil?
They're good too, I forgot to list them lol. Great call!
Feminazgul and Oathbreaker
Kittie was a favorite of mine back in high school. Haven't listened in a while but I know what I'm listening to today
Came here to say Kittie. New album is fucking TIGHT
Otep and Kittie are awesome.
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.
Arch Enemy is another one.
Doomsday Machine (https://tidal.com/album/51971329?u) great album.
If you like them The Agonist is a good band in the same vein. Alissa White-Glutz fronted them until she left for arch enemy and was replaced by Vicky Psarakis
Symphonic epic folk metal with female singers is my jams
Closet Witch
Sylvaine
Frayle
Cellar Darling
Tristania
After Forever
Just to name a handful off the top of my head.
Nightwish.
Favorite release: Once (https://tidal.com/album/186100020?u)
Imaginaerum is a fun album, Scaretale and the first half of Song of Myself are great.
Outside of some other bands that other users have already mentioned, one band I'm aware of is a Swedish metal band called All Ends. It's been a while since I've listened to them but I know about them because the lead singer worked with Crush 40 for the final boss theme from Sonic and the Black Knight.
There are some other bands that I'm going to mention but they don't exclusively make metal (or at least I think, I haven't heard all of their music yet). And yes, they are all bands who make remixes of music from the Touhou games, which their is probably more artists I could mention but I have either forgotten them or just haven't listened to them yet.
The Other Flower, I almost forgot about this artist, Karma is great example of their music.
Akatsuki Records, Bloody Devotion is a great example of their music.
Undead Corporation, The Dream Of A Rabbit Singing In The Night is a good example of their music but I know that they do have music that is much "heavier".
Get In The Ring, while the title says it's "rock" despite the fact that it's clearly metal, 祭炎 is a good example of their music.
Sound Holic, because I don't use Spotify anymore, I have forgotten what the best example would be. The song I've been listening to the most that is at least partially metal is Grip & Break down.
A-One, while I know that they are primarily a eurobeat artist, they often mix other genres into their music. An example of a song that mixes metal with eurobeat is God Only knows, which is from Initial D the Arcade (2021).
There is one more that I want to mention but I don't know if the example I have is "heavy" enough to be considered metal or if it's just "orchestral rock". It's 蒼月の懺悔詩～Universal Nemesis by Yonder Voice. They might have heavier but as I stated earlier, I haven't heard all of their music yet.
Lots of great bands here already, and some new to me! One of my favorites I haven't seen here is Spiritbox... Courtney Laplante reminds me of Angela Gossow and Tatiana Shmayluk, she has the nice clean vocals as well as the super gutteral growl.
https://youtu.be/vVDXTFeGYwc
Gotta mention Spiritbox. Courtney is one of the most celebrated modern metalcore singers.
She absolutely deserves her flowers though, people who can switch from beautiful cleans to hatefully-heavy screams are crazy talented.
Their new album is pretty damn great too, glad they stuck the landing on the sophomore LP.
If you like Doom Metal you have to listen to Witch Mountain.
Singers:
Amanda Somerville (Trillum, Exit Eden, Kiske/Somerville)
Marcela Bovio (Stream of Passion, Mayan, Dark horse/White horse)
Bands:
Kobra and the Lotus - Heavy Rock
Stream of Passion - Progressive Metal
Tardigrade Inferno - Cabaret Metal
Volturian - Symphonic/Pop Metal
Acid King
Witch Mountain
SubRosa
Bloody Panda
Couch Slut (more hardcore/noise)
Couch Slut is awesome
Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil. Does Blackmore's Night count? Actually, I don't know if any of these technically count as metal. But I like them anyway.
Visions Of Atlantis has two singers, male and female, with the female being the lead. I forget their names, and I know a quick google search would tell me, but I'm having trouble balancing this message and the steering wheel, plus this bowl of soup is REALLY hot.
I saw Visions open for Korpiklaani last May and quickly fell in love with them. Illumishade also opened, another band with a female vocalist.
That's awesome, did they play Master The Hurricane? That song makes me speed in parking lots.
First song in the setlist.
My bits:
Amaranthe
Angtoria
Cinnamon Babe
Dorothy
Nightwish
Venus 5
UNLEASH THE ARCHERS. By far my favorite band.
Their last three albums have all been amazing. I saw them live a couple of years ago, and they have such an incredible stage presence simply due to the amount of skill and talent they all have.
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
Late to the party but my recommendation is Oceans of Slumber
Ohhh Oceans of Slumber are so good
The Breeders kicked fucking ass - Kim Deal went on to form the Pixies but her first project is absolutely worth a listen as well.
Wendy O Williams was and will forever be the queen of anarcho punk rock.
Too bad she decided to leave, but it was her way to go.
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.
Fuck yeah Crypta. Fernanda has a monstrous stage presence.
Sadly I just read that Jéssica di Falchi (guitar) left the band the other day.
CASTLE RAT
Number 1 would have to be:
Some others I didn't see in this thread are:
Man I thought Without Face was a band lost to time. I love the song "Weird Places".
Wargasm for your limp bizkit nu metal riffs without the rapping. Currently putting out quality too
Unleash the Archers, many good ones but I really like the album Apex and especially Shadow Guide and The Matriarch
A Sound of Thunder, Queen of hell and A Sound of Thunder might be my favorites but many greats imo
In This Moment
I used to love them when I was little, then forgot about them for a decade. They've only improved over time.
Stolen Babies is a long time favorite too, I love Dominique Persi
Theatres des Vampires is also fun
The Birthday Massacre of course
Julie Christmas is a personal favorite.
The Battle of Mice records are harrowing (content warning for DV). Made Out of Babies was incredible as well. Same for her work with Cult of Luna. Some really, really unique vocals there.
My personal favorite is the Spylacopa Self Titled record. That album was a great blending of styles and guest artists, but Julie's work stands out.
I'll just post one since I've not seen it here yet. Sorry If I missed it.
Future Static, Roach Queen is a top song
Such a small woman with a massive voice. I'd never heard of them until I was watching Electric Call Boy in Perth Australia and they were one of the openers.
Arkona - the best folk metal Hulder - great black metal
I’ll be seeing Arkona again in < two weeks!
I really like Nao from Maximum the Hormone, a Japanese metal band.
Great drummer, great voice, and she is hilarious. Her banter with Daisuke on their radio show they used to host was god damn hilarious.
In addition to the bands already listed I wanted to add:
Burning Witches is an all female Swiss heavy/power metal band. I found them while listening to Dio covers.
Frozen Crown is a female fronted Italian Power Metal band.
Volturian is a female fronted Italian symphonic metal band.
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.
Recently, Oceans Of Slumber, great combination of beauty and brutality
I also discoverd a few months back Haydee Irizarry from Aversed and Carnivora, but I can't find any recent stuff with her (at least in metal) which is sad since she seems to be a talented vocalist and musician
But also a good bunch of bands : Jinjer, Kittie, ETHS, Crypta, Stolen Babies, anything with Anneke van Giersbergen
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot since I only thought about vocalists (Gorod, for example, had a beast of a female drummer on their early albums)
Nightwish, Jinjer, Arch Enemy, Battle Beast comes to my mind. Noora Louhimo is quite good singer.
Edit - thought of a couple more...
Year of the Cobra! A husband/wife stoner/doom distorted bass/drums duo. They just came out with their 3rd album last month. Surprisingly great for only having two members.
Oh. Nobody mentioned "Rolo Tomassi" yet! One of my all-time favorites. Saw them live, too. A 1.50m petite lead singer with a voice from Hell. Love them so hard!
Anna Murphy (ex-Eluveitie, Cellar Darling) is probably my top metal hottie
Maria Brink and In This Moment
undead corporation and imperial circus dead decadence
After my teenage years it's been very rare for me to dig into a band deeply enough to learn anything about their members, so the easiest examples are all going to be women doing clean vocals, which is the one time you can (usually) explicitly tell the difference just by listening. Some of my favorite examples are Liv Kristine's work in Theatre of Tragedy, Tarja-era Nightwish, the first Stolen Babies album, and Sirenia's first two albums along with all of Tristania's discography pre-Rubicon.
I have two examples that immediately come to mind outside clean vocals:
Samantha Escarbe is the guitarist for Virgin Black and my understanding is she essentially splits the songwriting load with Rowan London. The Requiem stuff I still need to give more listens, but I think the first two albums are absolutely spectacular music. In "Museum of Iscariot" she does one of my favorite guitar solos I've ever heard.
Angela Gossow's vocals on Arch Enemy's "Wages of Sin" album are some of the absolute best in metal. I live for that shit. I never really got into anything else Arch Enemy did though.
Dark Castle - Surrender to All Life Beyond Form
Female-fronted stoner/sludge doom.
Saw them open for the almighty YOB back in 2011. Stevie Floyd is a badass.
I've heard of Dark Castle as Stevie Floyd is the now ex-wife of Jef Whitehead who's my favorite musician period. I haven't actually listened to any of their stuff though, maybe I should give them a try?
Do it, if you like sludgey riffing.
I always liked this Faye Wong song. Not hard enough to be metal, but I think it's still edgy and kind of haunting.
Adding one more: Battle Beast. Noora Louhimo's voice just remained imprinted in my brain. Can't really pick a favorite release.
I have nothing additional to add, however, since I am a newbie, I need to know how to save this post so I can listen to all of the artists I have not heard before on this list!
Click on the little star under the title comment to save the whole post, or click on the star under a regular comment to just save that comment!
Hmm, I always have a hard time picking favorites, but I've always enjoyed Halestorm! Pretty sure "can u see me in the dark?" has been pinned in the number one spot of my On Repeat playlist on Spotify for a couple of months now... Lzzy's vocals are fantastic in it!
Also, a couple of years ago Alex Reade joined Make Them Suffer, and I've been enjoying their latest album (also called Make Them Suffer), a few of the tracks from that album (Epitaph, Oscillator, Weaponized, and Small Town Syndrome) have also coincidentally been stuck in my On Repeat playlist for a while.
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.
elveitie: the call of the mountains
First bands that come to my mind are...
Potestas magicum diaboli. First album from asagraum. I remember listening to it over and over. It felt fresh for me at that time and it aged really well.
Destiny Potato
Japan has a lot of awesome female metal bands like Nemophila.
Daedric.
The coop with Dal Av is amazing!
Some faves of mine I haven't seen mentioned yet:
There's a ton of great women in metal, I'll drop two.
Mares of Thrace, Calgary AB based sludge/post/hardcore 2 piece, guitarist/vocalist is part of the original lineup, it's heavy and catchy.
I really like Hulder, black metal solo project, some of her early demos are amazing, this version of Into The Crypt of Rays comes to mind, got a wall flag of the art from this in my office.
I'd recommend Ragana. Excellent black metal duo who happen to be women.
Jinjer.
Cloud Rat
hevy
calm
I saw the "Women in Metal" title and thought this would be a thread about women in trade jobs (i.e. metalworking).
Just off the top of my head, probably forgot a lot of great bands.
Lita Ford
VCTMS
https://youtu.be/rPmT5q8aVWw
Dissemination
https://youtu.be/k9Ih0C-6BtI?si=gAwqh2yZVmkUYm2L
Most of the bands I would mention have already been listed by others, but I would suggest Ad Infinitum. I love how fast she switches from a clear, beautiful singing voice to a low growl and back.
Undead corporation
Smoulder is a great trad/doom band with a female vocalist. Savage Master is a really fun trad band with a female vocalist. Castle Rat is a cool new doom band with a female vocalist.
No ones said spiritbox yet
Dehydrated
Eths, Entheos, Vintersea, Igorr, Diablo Swing Orchestra
Stabbing!