Heavy metal bands with female lead singers seem to have an advantage.
Mediocre bands can become hugely popular simply by having a female singer instead of a male one.
The reasons for that are beyond the scope of this article.
As is the debate about whether this is fair.
All we are doing today is looking at the best female fronted metal bands.
These are bands that deserve their success. Their female singers are not gimmicks. The bands and the singers are all highly skilled and have put out a lot of incredible music over the years.
Heavy Metal Bands With Female Lead Singers
You will undoubtedly notice that these are all band from the western hemisphere. I fully realize there are a lot of incredible Japanese bands with female singers (and often all members are female). I have a separate article listing great Japanese metal girl bands.
Nightwish
Nightwish is possibly the most popular female-fronted heavy metal band of all time. They probably weren’t the first to employ an opera vocalist but they certainly popularized the trend.
With Tarja Turunen at the helm, this band rose to prominence in a flash, delivering powerful songs and performances while touring the globe.
My first introduction to Nightwish was the same as with most old-school heavy metal fans. I heard Wish I Had An Angel and instantly fell in love with the band. Just as the band established itself, Tarja left and was briefly replaced by another female singer, Anette Olsson.
Her brief tenure with Nightwish was quite memorable, but to me, it felt like the band was still soul-searching. It wasn’t before they discovered Floor Jansen that they began flourishing again. Due to her bombastic voice and impeccable performances, Nightwish returned to their former glory, all courtesy of powerful women driving them forward.
Arch Enemy
Arch Enemy is responsible for putting melodic death metal on the map, and they did it all with a female lead singer who is known to all fans of heavy music: the legendary Angela Gossow.
Although some female singers capable of dishing out decent growls were prowling the underground scene, Angela was among the first immensely successful death metal vocalists in a band that was just as capable as her.
The band’s initial style evolved over the years, but some of their staple tunes like Nemesis remain strong almost two decades after their release.
Arch Enemy followed a similar story to Nightwish – Angela left, and it felt like a huge hole in the hearts of fans around the globe. Even though her unique voice and personality are irreplaceable, the band eventually found a suitable candidate to fill her shoes.
Alissa White-Gluz, a Canadian-born female singer, saw moderate success with The Agonist and helped Arch Enemy pick up where they left off. Her beautiful appearance, nimble cleans, and earth-crushing growls made the band even more versatile than before, and the group kept pushing onward.
In This Moment
I’m not a huge fan of crossover genres, but for In This Moment, I’ll gladly make an exception. This is debatably the first modern female-driven heavy metal band to properly utilize elements of hip-hop and reach global fame.
Helmed by Maria Brink, In This Moment is as flamboyant as they come. Danger, attitude, and plenty of character are just some of the traits I’d ascribe to this powerful singer, although she rarely employs techniques I love heavy metal for.
Let me touch on Blood, the decade-old hit that helped them break through to the next stage. Even though the vocals are packed to the brim with special effects, it’s painfully clear that Maria’s voice is just built differently. There’s innate, almost primal strength in the way her vocals sound, and similar to Warlock’s Doro, she’s a force to be reckoned with on stage.
Lacuna Coil
Lacuna Coil paved the road for a new wave of heavy metal. They weren’t the first to introduce pianos, strings, and electronica to this genre, nor were they the first to layer heavily distorted guitar licks with gorgeously clean vocals, but they were the ones to consistently write good songs while doing it.
Cristina Adriana Scabbia, popularly known as simply “Scabbia” is the driving voice of Lacuna Coil’s authentic sound.
They have a ton of beautiful tunes, but I believe that Trip The Darkness shows everything they can do. Scabbia’s soulful cleans fit so well with the punchy guitars and drums, and even though some may consider them a one-trick pony, they’ve been among the best in this field for a long while.
Within Temptation
I love Within Temptation’s sound, but I’m equally in love with the band knowing that it was founded by a female singer. I’m talking about Sharon den Adel, a powerful woman with a voice just as strong, who made waves in the European symphonic metal scene and is considered one of the top vocalists in the world of heavy metal.
Similar to Nightwish, Within Temptation mostly sticks with simplistic, yet robust, guitar licks and basic, but well-arranged, drum patterns, leaving ample room for Sharon’s voice to soar above it all.
One of my favorite tunes from this band is Faster, which they released relatively recently. It perfectly illustrates how placing a godly female voice at the focal point of the band’s sound is a golden recipe for a hit heavy metal tune.
Warlock
Warlock is an old-school heavy metal band from Düsseldorf, Germany that occasionally dabbled in speed and power metal. They’ve were active throughout the ‘80s, and they made waves in Europe and the US with Doro Pesch at the front.
We have to remember that the ‘80s heavy metal scene was fairly wild. Massive bands like Megadeth, Death, and Metallica were formed during this time, and it took immense mental fortitude and skill to compete with names like these in a world where female-fronted bands were all but the norm.
I believe that Warlock’s All We Are perfectly showcases Doro’s stage presence, talent, and capability as a female band leader. She commands respect and authority without ever speaking, and her robust voice was strong enough to make the band explode across global markets even with only four albums under their belt.
Butcher Babies
Let’s wrap it up with a heavy metal band that is fronted by not one, but two, female singers. Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey are the Butcher Babies, mesmerizing audiences with gut-wrenching growls and an indomitable stage presence.
I can’t think of a better song that would explain the Butcher Babies vibe to a first-time listener than Monsters Ball. It’s as heavy as a brick wall falling on your back while you’re carrying a bag of wet concrete, and the reason why I love this band so much is that they’re even crazier live.
They’re currently slightly less popular than the bands I mentioned, mainly due to the fact that the band formed in 2010 in LA, California. Give them some time, and I’m sure they’re going to flip the heavy metal scene upside down.
Metal Bands With Female Singers: Final Thoughts
What do you think of these heavy metal bands with female lead singers? Do you agree that they are the best, or are there some other bands I should have included on this list?
Please feel free to let me know in a comment below. As mentioned above, I will soon publish a separate article specifically on female Japanese metal bands. I am still happy to hear any Japanese suggestions, but I will not add them to this article.
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