What do you think of the hard core growl/sing?

Cafe Society
1

OK, I’m going to be real general in this post. . .

I think that one reason that I’ve found newer metal a little bit inaccessible is the growl “singing”.

I like the speed, the production, the tightness of the bands, the riffs, the rapid changes of structure within songs, but I’ve always had kind of a hard time dealing with that vocal style.

I guess for one, I hear these guys making decent music then they just ruin it by adding another component that brings nothing to it, almost like they’re afraid to let the music speak for itself, or afraid to make lyrics intelligible.

The singing is so unmelodic, yet the bands don’t shun melody. I also don’t recognize much difference between growl singers. Perhaps my ears aren’t as tuned to it as people who have spent more time with it.

But, I’m also a bit perplexed because it almost seems to be treated as an integral part of metal (am I wrong?). That’s not really logical to me. I could see if a couple bands did it, but it’s such a peculiar style to have so many bands doing it. Is there anything inherent in metal that should have led to so many bands using it?

I bring this up because I recently picked up an album by killswitch engage. Their lead singer switches back and forth between that aggro style, and “regular” singing. (I think it’s the same guy doing both styles.)

I must say, the growling isn’t bugging me so much, I must say. It’s almost like they use as part of their “wall of sound” without relying on it exclusively. So I wonder if I’ve looked at it all wrong all along, never giving other bands a chance.

Or maybe, I’ve heard enough of it through random exposure so that I’ve become a little inured to it.

So, any deep thoughts on “growl singing”? I’ve poked around wiki a bit here’s the death growl page. That’s more facts than criticism, though.

2

I believe that a well timed and well executed growl can really add a lot to a song. Unfortunately, there are a lot of singers who can’t growl as well as they seem to think they can, and others who do it too often or even exclusively. I prefer bands that balance it out with some clean singing so that when they do use it, it means something.

3

I’ve heard it called Cookie Monster vocals, and I can’t get that out of my head whenever I hear that stuff.

So, that, combined with the excessive use of minor key/recycled blues riffs and the faux sinister posturing pretty much makes metal these days a great big meh to me.

4

Well there’s plenty of things that most people would call metal coming out these days that has little if any growling in it. Bands like Dragonforce, Trivium, or some of the stuff by Avenged Sevenfold has lots of melodic singing.

As to how I personally feel about growling, well, it’s kind of a way for a newer band to strongly associate to a genre of music (we can’t be weak sauce sellouts, we have blackened death vocals dude!) that’s considered underground or “legit” or “scene” or whatever the stupid term de jour is for having credibility as an artist. Growling vocals will wear thin as soon as the Fred Durst of death metal rears his head and then it will be something else that proves how “core” you are.

5

Yeah, the posturing is funny. Are there that many guys who are hard ALL THE TIME?

But, as I get older, I really do miss listening to some rocking-ass shit. You can’t put on “Wilco” and “Radiohead” every day without sliding down the adult contemporary path, however good they may be.

And, it seems like if I want to listen to NEW rock that is at least as hard as what I listened to in High School, there’s going to be some growling. Not that I’m looking for anti-growl recs. I’m just trying to understand it a little better.

6

Do me a favor so I can do you one. What did you listen to in high school?

7

That’s exactly what I was going to ask him.

8

Well between you, me and some of the other metal orientated folks on the board I’ll bet we can have him up and rocking in no time at all.

9

Well, in the early 2000’s it seemed that most semi-popular growl-bands did eschew melody. (Some didn’t of course.)

But I, too, like it when the singer can alternate between growling and regular singing as long as he can pull it off. Coheed and Cambria, for instance, and to tell the truth I’d prefer both Second Stage Turbine Blade better if he had more growling rather than constantly ultra-frail singing. Just playing selections from it in concert is really good but to just put it on for a straight run-through sets my nerves on edge a bit.

10

My big bands were some of the regular monsters of rock. . .Zep, AC/DC, G n R.

But, as for metal. . .early on it was Dokken, Dio, Priest, W.A.S.P., but then a dose of Metallica, Megadeth, a little Anthrax. Nothing that out there.

Thing is, I sort of left it all. . .I got into other stuff in the 90’s (mostly grunge rock), and when I was getting back into metal, I ran into Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc. And, like I sort of mentioned. . .I couldn’t get past the growling. Now, maybe.

I’ve listened to some Tool, A Perfect Circle, then other stuff bordering on metal that I’ve only liked a bit. . .Monster Magnet, Buckcherry.

11

Ok, I mostly wanted to make sure that the thrash masters made it onto your list, thrash is enjoying a huge comeback and almost none of the more notable bands does much of the death growling stuff.

Check out Municipal Waste, Trivium, or 3 Inches of Blood as well as the newer releases by older thrash bands like Exodus for a bit of your 80’s thrashy stuff fix.

12

Yeah, I’ve come across Trivium mentions a couple times. I’ll definitely have to check them out.

Still, this is all a little beside the point (not that I don’t appreciate it).

I’m really trying to get a grip on what people appreciate about that style of singing. There must be people that hear a guy start singing like that, and go, “YES! That fucking ROCKS!” Right?

Not everyone can think it’s a blight.

13

Tell me about it. I just recently started listening to a few death metal bands. Unearth is a SICK bunch of musicians making great music, but the vocals are very harsh. I’ve learned to accept it and it makes the songs more enjoyable. Great guitar playing in that band.

14

Ok, well then let’s see. I dig the harsh vocals because there was a time back around 15 or so years ago when I first heard bands like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide and Napalm Death and loved that they were somehow able to be even *harder * than bands like Metallica or Megadeth. At the time hardness was definately a quality that I sought out in most of my music tastes. I clearly remember thinking that Chris Barnes the orignal, um, singer of Cannibal Corpse was some ultra wicked inhuman machine for being able to make those evil burping noises.

Then I heard bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone and Bathory with the shreiking black metal rasping vocals and thought that these guys were just the most evil sounding thing in the world.

Now I suppose that most of the newer bands are kind of just aping off that stuff, but I’m used to it as a style so I continue to enjoy it and probably enjoy it more since it’s become less extreme and as both Death and Black metal becomes more and more mainstream every day. There are bands that have elevated it to an artform like Opeth and bands that have pretty much nailed everything that the genre has to offer like Job for a Cowboy while certain black metal bands like Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir sell lots of t-shirts and records by finding a way to make the most extreme music more accessable and pleasing.

Long story short I was never out of the metal game so I changed with the times and as a result don’t have a great deal of culture shock with things that are considered hip these days.

15

Cookie monster vocals = poop.

16

In a lot of cases, vocalists are growling or using other metal vocals to cover up the fact that they’re pretty mediocre singers. Thing is, though, if you can’t sing well you’re probably not going to sound good doing all that other stuff, although there are exceptions.

The best example I can think of to illustrate the difference between clean vocals and death growls is Swallow the Sun’s The Morning Never Came. There are enough segments with clean vocals to suggest that if there were no growls, the songs would be accessible to a mainstream audience, if not actually radio-friendly. But throw in growling vocals and all of a sudden it’s doom/death metal. My Dying Bride’s Turn Loose the Swans and Opeth’s Blackwater Park are two other good examples of growling done very well and used to good effect. Ihsahn’s work with Emperor is a good example of someone who doesn’t sing much but clearly has a great voice for it.

And of course I have to point out that metalcore and death growls are two distinct vocal styles. I can do a not-all-that-great death growl, but I can’t imitate metalcore vocals at all. (For what it’s worth, I think my black metal voice is pretty good.)

17

And I can’t do a death growl at all, but I can yell like the singer in a hardcore/metalcore band pretty well and my brother and I leave each other voicemails using our “black metal” voices just to crack each other up but they’re not really good.

18

I triple dog dare you to replace the vocals of a death metal song with a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger voice and not laugh. It helps when you’ve had a few or 10 beers.
“Will I last though this glorious nightmare? ARRRARRARARARAR GET DOWN!!!”

19

That made me laugh just thinking about it.

20

I’m one of them. One of my favorite albums of 2007 is The Novella Reservoir by Novembers Doom. The first track, Rain, did exactly that. Even now when I hear it, I just want to shut my eyes, bite my lower lip, throw up the devil horns, and bang my head for all it’s worth. I think he has one of the best death voices in metal today, but he also has a better than average clean voice. It creates some really amazing dynamics in their music.