Do you like distorted vocals such as Children of Bodom, Opeth, Megadeth, and Clutch? Although these bands use different types of distorted vocals (death growl, banshee screech, etc) do you think it adds to the heaviness of the song or detracts from the musicality? What are your thoughts?
6 comments:
I like distorted vocals. It is similar to a guitar player stomping a distortion pedal, makes things heavier. However, it can get old really fast. I like bands who can mix up the singing with the distortion such as Trivium and Into Eternity.
I grew up in the golden age of British Heavy Metal. Super sopranos singing melodic vocals in the high reaches of the stratosphere: Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Accept, Scorpions, AC/DC.
My initial reaction to death growls were instant repulsion, but through perseverance and study, I have learned to love a well placed growl as much as an arpeggio, or an amp-splitting riff. All things in moderation, but growling is a skill. If you doubt it, try singing a 2 hour set like Cookie Monster.
The perfect mix of death vocals and melodic vocals can be found on the following songs: Opeth's Ghost of Perdition and Into Eternity's Timeless Winter. Both are brilliant!
I laughed the first time I heard Clutch's Elephant Riders and Opeth's Master's Apprentice--seriously laughed. I didn't get it. I listened to the music though and fell in love with those bands. Now I prefer to have a mix of heavy and melodic vocals.
At first distorted vocals, like a low growl, can really invigorate a song and provide power. But an entire album of that same type of vox can be fairly grating.
I love Snapcase, but my friends and I would always debate how good they could be if they interspersed some singing with the typical hardcore shouts.
I agree somewhat that Into Eternity have a unique and intriguing sound w/ clean singing and growling but on the other hand, is that really what you want? or are they just too schizophrenic thus not really creating one type of music but many types; and not staying true to one sound or creating one sound can lessen the entire concept because you can't really get the entire context of the music.
In the end a voice either does it for me or doesn't, and some set formula such as all screaming or mixing it up isn't the answer. The answer is a complete sound that all fits together. Mastodon mixes low growls with some singing etc, but it all works, Mast doesn't feature the vox, the vox are just part of the music as a whole. Also w/ Trivium, the vox just fit along w/ the music as whole.
The true use of different vocals equally with different instruments is best demonstrated by Aryeon. The screams, the growls mixed with high clean and female voices all blend together to tell the story. True art. The overall art should be more important that sticking to some preconceived notion of a music-limiting genre ought to be.
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