Here are the hard rock / metal vocalists I really like:
Rob Halford
Bon Scott
Ozzy
Klaus Meine
I can only think of four.
What an incredibly strange thing to say.
There has been a lot of excellent slow or mid-tempo extreme metal in the last half-a-decade or so.
Yes, all-blastbeats-all-the-time was a thing for a while (at least within black metal), but that was a long time ago. Panzer Division Marduk came out, what, a decade ago? Or more? Things have changed since then, man. Even Marduk themselves pen a lot of mid-tempo tunes these days, ferchrissakes, after Arioch replaced Legion on vocals.
Just in the last year or two, we’ve seen some mind-blowing slooooooow metal coming out: Encoffination, Hellvetron, The Ruins Of Beverast, etc., etc. And if you include doom/stoner/sludge etc., then there’s Cough, Windhand, The Moon Mistress, etc., etc. - not to mention trendier, more mainstream-friendly acts such as Jex Thoth, Rose Kemp, etc. And then there’s the whole 70’s revival thing, with Magic Circle, Blood Ceremony, Jess And The Ancient Ones, The Devil’s Blood, etc., etc.
Long story short: Extreme metal is as strong today as it has ever been.
Ps. Electric Wizard is an absolutely amazing band, but IMHO the vocals are the weakest link in their chain, so to speak. It’s the tidal-wave riffs that carry the thunder.
In no particular order:
Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth)
James Hetfield (Metallica)
Morgan Lander (Kittie)
Dave Draiman (Disturbed)
Sandra Nasic (Guano Apes)
Special mention: Anneke van Giersbergen, formerly of The Gathering, although The Gathering had mostly moved away from metal by the time she came aboard.
[ol]
[li]James Hetfield - he sings like a goddamned pit bull would. I love it.[/li][li]Geoff Tate - he has an unbelievable vocal range. He can do it all.[/li][li]Robert Plant - you read that right. Led Zeppelin practically invented metal and Plant was the face and voice to a musical revolution.[/li][li]Brendon Small - the voice of Nathan Explosion in Dethklok (Metalocalypse). The dude is classically trained at Berklee.[/li][li]Rob Halford - can anyone hit those high notes better than he?[/li][/ol]