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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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  • 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

    • Sandra Nasić of the Guano Apes for her appearance on Apocalyptica’s Path Vol. 2.

      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.

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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