ROCKER: The art of heavy metal vocals

In the world of metal music, vocals are a key component in the musical process. The choice of which frontman to use and which vocal style to employ over the usually intricate instrumentals is a delicate act that determines whether or not a band makes it to the big league.

Above all, the genre of metal you wish to venture into greatly determines what vocal style to use in your tracks. Let’s focus on the three most popular sub-genres of heavy metal and learn from the top vocalists in these fields just what it takes succeed.

THRASH METAL

In thrash metal, if you are a vocalist, you have to be alive to a few things before going into studio to track the vocals. It is one of the more challenging fields of metal and needs a lot of zeal and constant practice. Examples in the field of thrash have varied voice pitches. James Hetfield of Metallica has a baritone now that he’s aged. Dave Mustaine, quite intriguingly, still has his high-pitched voice after all these years.

Tom Araya of Slayers sounds like your average, everyday guy, both on and off stage. The key to these three musicians’ success has been their frontmen’s ability to adapt to the quickness of the songs they play.

They can all sing incredibly fast while remaining in tempo with the rest of their mates, distinctly, and while playing their instruments.

METAL CORE

In the world of metal core, everything changes. In a way, this field allows bands to experiment with various vocal styles so it isn’t really possible to pin a particular skill as being the go-to style for all and sundry.

Metal core allows bands to have both guttural growls and clean vocals. However, the trick lies in the balancing the two. In some bands, there is one lead vocalist who employs the growling technique which is basically a heavy, distorted vocalisation style where the words are growled as opposed to traditionally sang. Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe is arguably one of the best metal core vocalists of all time.

He has an uncanny ability to maintain his growling throughout long sets. Blythe also has a one-of-a-kind voice and his growls sound like a very angry animal but are still good to listen to.

Usually, to get more airplay, bands adopt a dual-vocals approach, where there is a lead singer and a back-up vocalist, both of whom sing on their tracks concurrently, especially the choruses.

This dual approach is usually successful. Wovenwar used both Shane Blay and Josh Gilbert on vocals and their live shows sound quite different from the other bands in the field.

Both sing clean vocals but Blay has a more rugged baritone  so there is a neat, little aggression in there. It is delightful. Locally, Leon Malu of Mortal Soul, who admits to having been  influenced  by Trivium’s Matt Heafy, is a great example of a vocalist who can sing both clean vocals and gutturals. Listening to their extended-play album adequately demonstrates this.

DEATH METAL/MELODIC DEATH METAL

This genre is much hated because it is highly misunderstood. The ugliness of the deep vocals used make people associate it with evil involved. Sure, some bands have openly confessed to being atheists, but most bands in this sub-genre sing about the filth in the world. That aside, there are some talented individuals here. In melodic death metal, clean vocals play a huge role to complementing the gutturals of the lead singer.

This is evident when you look at  Insomnium, one of the best bands in this field. You cannot talk about great death metal vocalists without mentioning Mitch Luker, the former lead singer of Suicide Silence. He might have had controversial lyrics, but his talent was undeniable.

Phil Bozeman of Whitechapel is also very talented. He likes to say that he slithers on stage to get into character. Scary as that might sound, it works for his fans and the band plays a mean set every time.

Locally, Martin Kanja of Lust of a Dying Breed has had his fair share of crowd pleasers through his ability to bring out more than one voice while growling on tunes. On the band’s extended play, songs like Denouement and Cat of Nine Tails showed his unique abilities.