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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Jinger band with Tatiana Shmayluk as vocalist is crazy good.
Great pick. Pisces is the song that got me into them.
Throwing some support in for Nightwish. They’ve some good shit.
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.
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
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
Delain (Dutch, started as a side project from one of the Within Temptation members)
Flyleaf
Within Temptation (also Dutch)
Amaranthe
Otep and Kittie are awesome.
Symphonic epic folk metal with female singers is my jams
- Grai - Russian pagan / folk metal
- Folterkammer - Operatic / symphonic black metal
- Draconian - Swedish doom / goth metal
- Messa - Scarlet Doom metal
- Wardruna - Nordic folk metal
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
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.
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.
