Heaviest metal with understandable vocals

Cafe Society
1

Amon Amarth has done some great death metal / bordering on melodic death metal with understandable (not “clean”, though) vocals, but not all of their vocals are. “Valhalla Awaits” is probably my favorite death metal song.

Gwar’s last two albums have been pretty heavy and almost 100% understandable lyrics.

Dragonforce is arguably just as “heavy” as anyone else (if you allow the ocassional keyboard solo in your definition of heavy :)) but their vocals are obviously not aggressive at all (not a bad thing - I like Dragonforce.)

Who else? I like bands who sing in English (or why else want understandble lyrics?) and fantasy themes are always a plus.

2

Bathory’s “Viking Metal” period is all clean vocals, and there’s some crazy heavy shit on Nordland I & II (“Great Hall Awaits A Fallen Brother”, “Death and Resurrection of a Northern Son”) and Blood on Ice (“Gods of Thunder of Wind and of Rain”)

3

You can almost always understand what Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth is singing or growling. The guy from …And Oceans is also pretty clear, at least when the lyrics are in English.

4

Bought thisrecently, I think it meets the requirement nicely…

5

Iced Earth is always good for clean vocals. They have had a few singer changes though and that might mess with you.

6

Dark Tranquillity’s Haven album should pass the requirements. Machine Head are also fairly heavy.

7

Grave Digger is one of my fav bands - good ol’ German thrash (but with English lyrics), clean voices, although the singer does sound like he’s been smoking in the womb. Think “Lemmy from Motörhead with throat cancer”. Funniest thing is, the guy has the face (and smile) of a baby. I’d suggest the albums “Tunes of War”, “Knights of the Cross” and “The Grave Digger”.

Blind Guardian, while less heavy I suppose, has done some very good albums - I’m very fond of “Nightfall in Middle Earth”. As you can tell, lots of their material is heavily Tolkien-inspired.

I second ultrafilter, Opeth’s great, can’t go wrong with them.

If you like the very fast paced style of Dragonforce, you could try Rhapsody, Sonata Arctica, or White Skull (and in case you were wondering, yes, that’s a woman singing).

And last but not least, Annihilatoris pure energy - if you ever get the chance to see them live, do not miss it.

8

Several prog metal bands come to mind, including Pagan’s Mind, Circus Maximus, Communic and Symphony X. They’re like Dream Theater with only the heavy parts (for the most part).

Ensiferum is another band that has mostly harsh vocals but understandable.

9

Ah yes, I love Ensiferum and Rhapsody, and like Grave Digger (Rheingold is a great album; don’t care much for the others.)

I’ve checked out some of these so far and will be checking out more. Keep them coming.

Thanks.