Best Metal Vocalist right now
 

Who is it?

Dallas Taylor (MATSOD)
Jimmy Ryan (Trenches, HTD)
Rody Walker (Protest The Hero)

Take your pick.

i say howard jones and Lars Palmqvist from scar symmetry

I think I'll go with Rody Walker too
though I just listened to Suicide Silence for the first time today and I'd say their vocalist is up there as well, whatever his name is

i think the best metal voice right now is
Randy Blythe (LambOfGod)
Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth)

randy has the brutal voice, and in their newest albums, hes acually hitting notes now.
and Mikael has trained his voice enough that you can understand him, word for word even with his brutal metal scream

Bobby Blitz Ellsworth from Overkill. Nobody tops him in my opinion, his voice has high range, balls, and attitude. Listen to their song, I Hate. Now that is angerier and has much more balls than any of those hardcore/metalcore and contemparary metal bands that are popular today, and he doesn't even need to use ****ty harsh vocals (screams/growls/grunts/pig squeals/etc.) either.

Simon Hestnaes aka ICS Vortex (Arcturus, Dimmu Borgir).

Mikael Åkerfeldt's got my vote.

The guy from Lamb of God is pretty savage I have to say =]

The guys at the top of my list:
Tommy Rodgers (BTBAM)
Mike Akerfeldt (Opeth)
Joseph Duplantier (Gojira)

Tommy Rodgers is a decent vocalist, but I find his range is kind of limited.

Really? I don't know about that. I think his range is huge. His dry lung vocals basically consist of the same highs and lows, but I've heard him do all kinds of vocals. His chops were demonstrated very well on their cover CD: they did a kick ass take on "Bicycle Race" by Queen, but he couldn't quite pull off the high vocals on "The Day I Tried to Live", but Cornell can't even do that anymore. But this guy has wicked strong metal vox, excellent clean vox, and he even gets into some cheesy sounding power metal-style vox. There's even a part in "Backwards Marathon" where he hits a scream that sounds like Cedric Bixler from The Mars Volta.

I find him as a very inspiring vocalist, especially for being a fairly young dude.

Devin Townsend - Strapping Young Lad and his own solo work

Mikhail Akerfeldt - Opeth

Jimmy Ryan is good, but not that good. Don't get me wrong, I loved his work with Haste the Day but I don't think he's on par with quite a few other popular metal vocalists.

I will agree with you on Rody Walker. There was about a month or so when I listened to nothing but Protest The Hero and Misery Signals.


Personally...my vote would be for Hernan Hermida of All Shall Perish. Incredible range, and just as good live as he is on the albums. (the whole band is actually....flawless live performance)

Tough question... There are good frontmen, guys with good vocal range, guys with good growls...

Randy Blythe's voice suits Lamb of God very well and he is a pretty solid frontman. He has very little range though in my opinion and isn't "classically skilled".
Liam Cormier from the Cancer Bats is probably one of the best frontmen I have ever seen since Phil Anselmo... Despite being signed and having two albums out they still drive around in a regular van and play small venues that really showcase their stage show well. His range is pretty good too and he is clearly intelligible.
I'm not a real PTH fan but Rody definitely has a huge range and not only that, he's very creative with it. Not the best stage presence imo but that sort of suits the band.
Can't say I really like Brent Hinds' clean vocals off the new album.
Tom Araya's vocals have always been way overrated to me. He sounded amazing on Show No Mercy and it just kept going downhill from there.
I also really love Karl Willets from Bolt Thrower but I'm just ****ing obsessed with BT so I don't really have any justification.

i really enjoy Mikael Åkerfeldt's vocals, especially when he's singing

Not to mention his roars could destroy a mountain.

yeah, that too, haha

He's just a great all-around vocalist period.

/fanboism

Yeah, Mike seems to be pretty popular in this thread, and for good reason.

I think he's one of the most recognizable screamers out there. His work with HTD was pretty much straight core, but have you heard trenches? Completely different. You get to hear him flex the pipes a little bit with the new band, he still has the raunchy growl though.

Robert Lowe (Solitude Aeturnus,Candlemass) - easily the best voice in metal

Ihsahn (Emperor etc)
Mike Scalzi (Slough Feg)

Lars Palmqvist hasn't actually been on any albums yet; the band switched to Lars from someone else after Holographic Universe.

- Devin Townsend (Strapping Young Lad, solo work, The Devin Townsend Band)
- Mike Patton when he makes metal, though he hardly sticks only to it.

Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth)
Anders Fridén (In Flames)
Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom)

I also go for Mikael Akerfeldt
...AND Aaron Stainthorpe

Since I'm new to metal music, I've been reading all the posts in this thread to see if any of the metal vocalists people feel are the best right now are women, but all appeared to be men. Are any of the current best metal vocalists women and, if so, would you please give me some examples so I can listen to them? --Erica

Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy is probably the "best" female vocalist out there these days; her band is brutal without compromising like Nightwish did. I also really like I Hate Sally and their frontwoman although they've since broken up.

If you are looking for a cute voice, then metal isn't exactly for you I guess. Maybe except stuff like Draconian.
But, there are girls that blow in growling. For example, Thorr's Hammer. She growls better than a lot of male

deadlock has some cute girly vocals. here is a few links

Erica's Top Metal Voice pick so far
 

Thanks for the links and information about female metal vocalists. After listening to them and some of the previous artists you mention, I would have to say so far my ranking would be (drum roll)...

(1) JIMMY RYAN. Reason: versatility. In "Trenches" he uses a moody singing voice, and I like his tone better than some of the other men's, yet he also does screaming and (in the previous song posted) growling. One complaint I have with some of the metal songs in general that use growling is that the singer growls the whole way through. I like the contrast between traditional singing and growling or screaming (although I do worry about them hurting their voices!).

I'll have to listen to more people so I have more to compare to, though.

(2) ANGELA GASSOW. Although the songs I listened to only had her growling, she did it well and her animated and intense theatrics during the pieces probably biased me in her favor.

I thought it was interesting that I can't hear any difference in tone between men or women when they growl. This actually makes me think that a woman could produce metal songs that have more variety than a man could, since she could do chilling pseudo-sweet sounding higher tunes (angelic) and then plunge into demonic-sounding growling, which produces a startle factor that men have a harder time achieving, I feel (although a man could do falsetto, but it doesn't sound the same). It is pleasant to see women who are *not* trying to be sweet or cute, which I feel is a "role" that women singers (and female people, in general) play all too often (pressured by society to do so).

The song "Code of Honor" by Deadlock, for example, amused me because in it the woman is singing a sort of melodic goth-type song in some cute pseudo middle ages type dress while sweetly strolling through some meadow, while the man growls the whole time in a singing/growling duet. The separation along traditional gender lines (woman sweet, lovely, etc. and man tough, harsh, etc.) made a song that to me seemed too stereotypical for what I guess I imagine metal to be, which is songs that violate traditional rules of what "good" singing (and "good" music) is.

--Erica

In my opinion, the best female metal vocalist is by far Annlouice Loegdlund from Diablo Swing Orchestra. However, she doesn't growl or anything so it's a bit different. In fact, most of her vocals are operatic.

Obviously, the best metal vocalist is Katy Perry :P

Im glad you liked Jimmy's vocals. If you want to hear more singing along side his growls you can check out Haste The Day's 'When Everything Falls' album. Which I have if you would want.

Not to be pedantic but technically it's Angela GOssow. Glad you liked her though. :)

3:

Bruce ****inson
Rob Halford
Dio

It has to be the guy from Godsmack. i forgot his name but he's pretty crazy =P

then you should be mentioning Layne Staley from Alice in Chains, seeing as Godsmack's vocalist is basically ripping him off

Mitch Lucker. I think He's pretty good, although the band sucks. What about the vocalist for War From a Harlot's Mouth?

Lars hasn't been on a single album yet. Do you mean Christian [insert last name here, I forget what it is], who was the fantastic vocalist on all of Scar Symmetry's albums so far?

For me it's:
Christian ______ (Scar Symmetry)
Rody Walker (Protest the Hero)
Thomas Rogers Jr. (BTBAM)