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.
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!
- Coven
- Girlschool
- Early Bolt Thrower
- Boris
- Corrupted had an incredible female singer some years ago
Just off the top of my head, probably forgot a lot of great bands.
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.
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
Jinjer is pretty badass. The vocals are top notch in both ends of the spectrum.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Arch Enemy fucking rocks. Angela and Alyssa are both badass and are probably my first time seeing a woman do harsh vocals like that.
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.
Delain (Dutch, started as a side project from one of the Within Temptation members)
Flyleaf
Within Temptation (also Dutch)
Amaranthe
UNLEASH THE ARCHERS. By far my favorite band.
Way too far down. Saw them in Charlotte last year with Powerwolf, my favorite band lol. Phantoma is just such a good album front to back
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.
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.
The drummer from Maximum The Hormone has some awesome vocals. I can’t find a clean video for this song, but you can skip to 3m40s to see her sing and drum https://youtu.be/rhCdOXGehSg
Sorry if this doesn’t qualify as metal. It’s pretty mixed.
Acid King
Witch Mountain
SubRosa
Bloody Panda
Couch Slut (more hardcore/noise)
Couch Slut is awesome
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
