Female vocals

[russ]

At the moment, im currently obsessed with female vocals against a hard rock or metal background. My favourite bands are evanescence and ive recently found a new band called nightwish. They rock too.

I guess i just like the mellow sound of a female voice over a hard rock background.

...Just wondering if anyone knew of any other bands with (predominantly) female vocals, and anyone else who shares this same interest.

[chopiabin]

Check out Walls of Jericho!! Theyre hardcore punk and they rock!

[lenny]

the gathering, within temptation, after forever

i like this kinda stuff too

[Vivers]

There used to be a great Canadian band matching your description called 'Joydrop,' and they put out two really quirky, unique albums (Metasexual, and Viberate), the first more quirky and unique than the second. But they disbanded, and they were never really mainstream except for two songs, 'Beautiful,' and 'Sometimes Wanna Die.'

[meisel]

Tristania is pretty cool, its darker and more symphonic than Nightwish and within temptation, they also use violins.  Bands like "Theatre of tragedy" and "the sins of thy beloved" are more relaxing, with a beautiful vocal.

Covenant (The Kovenant)`s album "Nexus Polaris" is a more extreme and less polished version of these bands, and the mixture of rough metal and the opera vocal works like hell, i think.

You shuold also check out "3rd and te mortal", each album varies, but the essence is hard music and female vocals.

[chopiabin]

Oh yeah, I forgot about 3rd and the Mortal, I bought their cd but never really listened to it. Theres a cool band called Agalloch that sometimes uses an opera singer, also check out the deftones song Knife Party - its an amazing song with an amazing guest singer.

[chickering9]

...Just wondering if anyone knew of any other bands with (predominantly) female vocals, and anyone else who shares this same interest.

If you want to explore a bit of history, check out Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity (especially the album with the group's name self-titling.  I've heard her compared to Dusty Springfield, but I think she's really quite her own thing.  Most photographed face of 1967.  But it's her voice that was truly amazing.  Punched right through even the most powerful of backup.  Another favorite of mine is Marianne Faithful, especially on "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan".  Then there's the diva of all time, Annie Lennox.  Once stood close enough to her to hear her voice pre-amp during a concert.  Truly amazing.  The appearance of her skin in the moonlight singing "Cool Blue" and that voice are permanently etched in my mind as one of those moments where one can't help but think how remarkable it is to be human and create such art graced by such beauty.

[russ]

I tried out Tristania, and found that their music varied a lot. In one song there'd be death metal vocals with operatic voices behind, which i liked a lot, and then in another there was no singing at all, just an acoustic Guitar with a few electronically produced sounds.

Does anyone know what albums/songs are similar to the first description - a "heavy-kind-of" background.

[meisel]

All the albums Tristania have released are of that description, i suppose you downloaded a track that needs to be put in a context (the whole album) to be fully appreciated.
The former songwriter in Tristania now plays in a band called Sirenia, which is more or less in the same alley.

The bands i have mentioned earlier,are mostly bands that combine a death metal vocal with female clean vocal. "Trial of tears" and "Myriads" are also quite close to that genre, although Trail of tears are more influenced by black metal than gothic.

After Forever and Lacrimosa (although i have never actually heard it myself) is somewhat more polished and softer than Sirenia, but pretty cool if you are into that kind of music, i guess. I`ve got one album of After Forever, "Decipher", which i think is quite nice.

There are lots of bands like that, in the last five years they have popped (is that a word?) up like flees from a birds nest, so the problem is to filter away the 90 % that suck.