A question for metal fans.

[similar.squirrel]

Specifically, vocals. I've been listening to quite a lot of heavy songs lately, and I can't help but feel that the vast majority of them would be improved by the exclusion of guttural croaking.

Take this song, for example:
The guitar, bass and drums are sublime. It's an articulate wall of noise that is a joy to hear. But the vocals detract from the whole experience. Now, I'm not a huge fan of lyrics in general, but when they're discordant and unintelligible, the whole thing seems like an exercise in pointlessness.

Compare it to this song [not strictly 'metal', but genres are stupid anyway]:
Less technical, but a whole lot more bearable because there is no annoying distraction in the form of screaming and/or grunting.

Anyway, do you see death-metal vocals as an unfortunate necessity, or do you feel that they actually add to the song? What is the appeal?
Also, is there any way of separating the audio tracks in a song and removing the vocals? I love Opeth, but Arkfeldt's 'singing' makes me cringe. I have Audacity, if that helps.

 

[Flames66]

I'm finding most metal far too heavy for my tastes at the moment. If the throaty vocals are in a song, I won't be listening.

 

[katsumoto03]

I agree to an extent. While some songs would be better without screaming vocals, for me it makes some songs worth listening to.

Take a band like, say, Amon Amarth. Their songs wouldn't sound right to me without the gutteral singing style.

Here's the song I'm talking about:


In my opinion the chorus would suck if sung normally.

 

[direkiller]

Specifically, vocals. I've been listening

Compare it to this song [not strictly 'metal', but genres are stupid anyway]:

Its metal(go to early black sabbath stuff see the roots it sounds similar to it)
As for black,death metal i completely agree
it just flat out ruins good songs

 

[GundamSentinel]

Too many metal bands take the grunting/croaking/groaning/screaming as 'their way' of making music. Sure, it works in some songs, but having an entire repertoire with just that gets old real soon. Sometimes I just want to enjoy singing (or maybe just instrumental).

 

[CoffeeOfDoom]

I like the whole 'grunting' lyrics thing.
I used to hate it though, my dad is a huge metal fan, and he would always be putting that sort of music on when I was in the car when I was younger, and I used to complain about it, saying it was giving me a headache.
It's probably because I've grown up with it and therefore gotten used it as the reason why I like it.
I do prefer songs where they mix up hard and soft vocals though, it packs more of a punch when they start screaming.
One of my favourite examples of 'screaming' vocals that I like would be this (yes, it is the song from the end of the Angry Joe Show!):

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iCFGNwNOIU

 

[PleaseDele]

As stated in the "Hated but now" thread you might have seen me saying I'm kind of growing out of metal. SO I might not be a metal "fan" but I'm still going to participate in this topic ^^

Anyways... Personally I'm not to keen on gutturals. I know for a fact that if a band always uses gutturals, they won't be able to hold on to my attention for too long. So the frequency in which it is used changes my opinion. It can really add something if it's switched around with "clean" vocals.

Besides that, I also find it really depends on the vocalist. If said vocalist manages to get a good pronunciation combined with gutturals, I can hear the lyrical content. Also, it invites me to sing (or growl) along, which I like cause that makes me party harder.

However most gutturals don't seem to be up to my standards so that usually ends up making me leave the scene after 3 or 4 songs.

 

[WrongSprite]

Keep listening. It's how I used to be, then I got used to it, and now I'm a massive fan. Your ears will adjust.

 

[Stammer]

I only like the metal that skirts the line between "metal" and "rock". So I agree with you, I think the screaming from the bowels of your lungs [http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail141.html] is a little too much for me.

 

[Nemu]

I hate screaming. Any yahoo can scream. I want to hear singing. No, I don't care if the sound guy has to turn the volume on the vocals up just so we can hear them, that's what he's there for.

THat's where I am now.

I've never been into the growly/screaming type of metal (except for Gwar because they're just fun). The new bands of today make me want to whip out a cane and yell at kids on my lawn. Then again, I've hated this type of music since my high school days when bands like Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death (et al) were growing in the metal community.

I'm waiting out the trendy metal for the next trend.

(Except for Mastodon...I do love them...)

 

[BonsaiK]

Specifically, vocals. I've been listening to quite a lot of heavy songs lately, and I can't help but feel that the vast majority of them would be improved by the exclusion of guttural croaking.

I'm going to copy and paste my response to a similar question I got a while back in my music industry thread, because it fits here perfectly. Enjoy:

The growling Cannibal Corpse style vocal delivery didn't just happen, it kind of evolved. In the early-mid 80s as metal was developing and changing very fast, there was definitely friendly competition between different bands to see who could be "heavier" than the competition. Venom were one of the first "non-melodic vocals" type of bands and people heard that at the time and were blown away by the heaviness - however in retrospect, those early Venom albums sound dated and not really that heavy at all. That's because other musicians heard Venom and went "if we could go heavier than that we'd be awesome". One way to get heavier music is to make it more focused on rhythm, and one way to make people focus more on rhythm is to remove things other than rhythm (such as melody) so the music comes across as primarily rhythm-based. By the 1990s a standard guttural growl had evolved as "the most heavy vocal style (TM)" for British and American death metal bands. In the meantime Scandinavians had other ideas and favoured a different type of growl which became standard for the black metal scene, this also evolved from early exponents, not just Venom but Bathory and others with a similar (mostly) friendly rivalry going on between bands. But the answer to your question is that you're supposed to be enjoying the rhythmic aspect of the vocals, not the melody. In a sense, this makes death/black metal and metalcore the metalhead's equivalent of rap music, and metal and rap are equivalent on a great deal of levels (sounds like shit when combined though).

 

[DerTiger]

well... i think growling in metal is quite good, depending on the general style of the song.

in rock or lighter metal like motorhead, acdc, stones, guns & roses, Hammerfall & edguy etc. the voice is ok and fits the song. but they are not as fast and brutal as those where i enjoy growling. And in some i think the growling and screeching even adds to the song being scary, creepy, haunting and brutal, though i prefere the growling. gets my rage-juices flowing.

<youtube=OJmsY7EluwI>
<youtube=_N8DxZhDoYU>
<youtube=-DDe_vw5JYA>

and i absolutely HATE these metalcore bands where in the reffrain is clear singing. hurts my ears and sounds absolutely gay. destroys a lot of otherwise good songs. (not that i'd like metalcore that much...)

 

[DanielBrown]

Never been a fan of growling, which I suppose is slightly hypocrytical since I'm a more than decent growler myself. When I begun recording music I growled, but I got so damn tired of it that I started experimenting with other styles - so you'd at least could make out the lyrics if you wanted to.

I guess the appeal is mainly to young metal fans, that just recently started listening to heavier music. Posers.

 

[CaptQuakers]

I was a metal fan but I became bored because too me all the songs sounded the same.Why do people think shouting is music.It really isn't.

I now listen to rap,not your 50cent crap but real rap. For me It still has the intensity that real metal had but It has the lyrics to match and the songs just seem to have more meaning to me.

 

[Sepphyre]

I have no problem with the gutturals. Just like playing an instrument though, there are times when it is used well and others when it is over-used or used out of place.

I find that it fits well into metal which is of a more aggressive nature (such as the Meshuggah example above) and Pantera and Fear Factory. I like the way that Opeth vary their use in amongst softer vocals, just as their music varies.

I also find that it fits well in the "beauty and the beast" style of music such as the following where it offers contrast against the female vocal and is a great match for the dire mood of the song :


In bands such as Epica however, the gutturals, although relatively brief, and neither well done nor match the mood of the melody.

I guess it all depends on the context.

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

It's adds to the song. I can't actually imagine death metal songs without it because without the screaming and the heavy instrumentals. Though I'm not a particularly big fan of death metal. I'm a Power, folk and Viking metal fan.

Like Ensiferum have the vocals down but they got it down good and it sounds like it was meant to be there.

Now you take a band like La Dispute (an english band that doesn't speak any french by the way). He just screams and it really does not sound good...like really, really, really not good.


(Saw them in concert because they were with another band I saw. The lead singer looks like the son of the guy who played Eric Foreman on That 70's Show and Seth Green.)

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

I have a very select taste in my metal vocals. I certainly do enjoy the screams/growls, but there are some bands I think do it awesomely, such as As I Lay Dying or Emmure;

​

and there are those who do it in a way I just cannot get into, or find grates across my hearing like a cat down a cheese grater;

​

Apologies to all the fans of the second form of vocals, but I really cannot stand it, to me he sounds like hes straining going to the loo.

I also think that anyone who truly believes that any fool can do metal vocals needs to seriously consider giving it a shot. It's very true that anyone can just shout, but to do the type of vocals that are in my first example without simply shredding your vocal chords and causing life long injury and scarring takes a lot of practice, believe it or not.

 

[chainsaw Killer]

I really like guttural vocals.
But That's a matter of Taste(as always in music).
But I didn't always like em, I can remember a lot of bands I didn't like that I love now.
You kinda grow into metal, some stop at Rock some go all the way to Grindcore.
Every Metalgenre has something to offer, I like all of them.
I wouldn't change them, if you don't like screaming you can always listen to Power/Gothic Metal ^^

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Some vocals are just so horrible I could listen to the band (Dream Theater). Oddly enough, I was listening to After the Burial when I came across this thread and their newest album has made me thing more about vocals. In their new album, the vocals are a lot cleaner, but over all, it is a lot more mellow than their first two. Their first album, and to a lesser extent, their second, had meh to what some could consider bad vocals, but the actual music (guitar, bass, drums) was so much better than in their newer album. So, as long as the vocals are half way decent and something else in the song is amazing, I can listen to it.