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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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! (Assuming you're on a regular browser.)
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.
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?
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.
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.
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)
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.
Can't believe nobody mentioned Nuclear Death. One of the sickest most primitively brutal Death Metal bands. In the same league with Autopsy, in my book. Mental artwork too.
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.
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.