Whilst chatting with a colleague at my day job of throwing bagged fish at Asian people, the topic of our music tastes came up. Anyone who knows me knows that whilst my taste is fairly eclectic (I've seen both Clutch and Toto live) I tend to favor 70s and 80s hard rock and heavy metal.
In the midst of our conversation in which my colleague expressed her liking for bands like Mindless Self Indulgence, Slipknot, etc - I brought up my own tastes, at which point my colleague looked at me with genuine inquisitiveness and said:
"Glenn... do you like any... modern bands?"
I wrack my brains for a couple of moments. As I slowly come to the realization that I honest to god can't think of a single band I like that was formed within, say, the last five years, I could feel the follicles in my hair greying before their time; my prostate swelling to the size of a basket ball; my IPhone filled with music morphing into a cumbersome LP collection (thank God) and my pockets filling with Werther's Originals to hand out to children before being arrested because I'm old and I don't understand that people find that creepy now.
Seriously. Not one. I mean it's not like this was something new or anything. I was often referred to as the "40 Year Old Child" by my grouchy, Irish twat of a high school guitar teacher due to my music taste that's so old it collects its pension once a week and freezes to death if you leave the window open for too long. But it was in this one moment that it kind of struck me: I don't like any modern bands.
Some may sympathize with me on this. New music is annoying, repetitive, shallow and often vomited forth by plastic humans with resting bitch face, usually having been selected on a glorified TV talent show by intolerable corporate cocksuckers and occasionally Tom Jones after losing a fight with a tanning bed.
But music is more than just what's in the charts. Do you think Black Sabbath were doing the rounds on national TV when they were churning out their first few classic albums? God no. So quite frankly, if I don't have any new bands that I enjoy listening to then... well I just haven't been paying attention. I haven't looked hard enough. So I decided that's what I would do. I would have a look and see if there were any bands I like that have started up in the last decade.
So in my initial search I came across one pretty quickly. A Swedish, retro-metal group known as Enforcer.
Aside from the blistering riffage and ear piercing, high pitched vocals... ladies and gentlemen; this is how you make a music video. A band drenched in dry ice thicker than Mumbai smog, shots of ominous graveyards and a haggard looking blonde chick drenched in blood whilst engaging in some vague, occult sex ritual. Good wholesome shit. Like back in the old days damn it.
Trouble is I wasn't even sure if this counted. I mean they're modern, they started up recently; but they ARE retro metal. They pretty much sound like Angel Witch or Grim Reaper. Needed to find something more contemporary. This is when I came across a band known as Lullacry, through their cover of one of my favourite songs, "L.O.V.E Machine" by the inimitable W.A.S.P.
So this was a mistake. If you're going to check out new bands the last thing you want to do is listen to their cover of a song you like, because it's automatically going to rub you up the wrong way when they fuck it up. Case in point: obligatory, obnoxious down-tuning and equally obnoxious vocal inflections coming from the lead vocalist who honestly sounds like she's in the wrong band. She sounds like she should be in a 90s girl group who gained fleeting popularity before disintegrating and then resurfacing a decade or two later to play to clubs full of 30-40 year olds who liked them as teenagers and are only showing up to try and recapture the nostalgia of a time when they weren't bleary eyed, medicated failures.
I looked at some of their other stuff but it's pretty much the same. Plus the lead singer reminds me of an old flat mate of mine.
Not going into that.
But here's where the title of the post comes in, as well as me being exposed as having the attention span of an autistic cocker spaniel. I decided to start searching for modern metal bands that were fronted by, or consisted entirely of women. Because goddammit, this is a problem. The lack of women in the heavy metal scene is just atrocious and needs to be rectified.
I mean I know I could just sit back and enjoy the music but how am I supposed to do that when the genitals of the musicians are right there, staring me in the face? Quite frankly this is the problem with male sexual organs being on the outside of the body; you have absolutely no choice other than to focus on them, even when it has nothing to do with the piece of art in question. I know that I, personally, cannot listen to a Judas Priest album without imagining Rob Halford's leather bound junk swinging back and forth like sweaty, sensual pendulums as the adrenaline of the music pumps blood through his thick, veiny shaft....
I forgot where I was going with this. Look the point is that the gender of the musician matters somehow damn it. And the entire genre has to change in order to deal with MY obsession.
Having said that, there have been plenty of female metal bands/artists in the past, and I aim to shine some light upon them, whilst also bringing to you this late 2017 article from hercampus.com. Which itself aims to introduce you to 6 female fronted metal bands that will "rock your socks off".
See, right there, that's it, that's what you want to do if you wish to bring more women into the scene. Soften the image. These bands wont tear your head off, they wont rip your heart out and feed it to starving dogs, they wont make you headbang until your eyes pop out of your sockets, nor will they force you down on your knees in preparation for Satan's gnarled mast of evil. They will simply rock your socks off. That's all. Don't worry ladies. We are here to protect your fragile brains.
Gurrll power.
".... we find that all female Rock/Metal bands are sparse. While we do have some exceptions like the all-female Metal band Girlschool from London, we do tend to see an alarming rate of male dominance in the Heavy Metal subculture."
".... we find that all female Rock/Metal bands are sparse. While we do have some exceptions like the all-female Metal band Girlschool from London, we do tend to see an alarming rate of male dominance in the Heavy Metal subculture."
I too find it alarming when people make a free choice to contribute to a genre and work their way up in a meritocratic system. Or not as the case may be. See this is why free choice is overrated folks. People consistently do the opposite of what you want them to do and it fucks everything up. How are we supposed to reach my idea of gender parity when WOMEN keep ruining it by NOT joining heavy metal bands? I'm just saying women need to be a tad more submissive and start doing as I tell them. Not asking for much here.
But let's not dilly dally any further. Let's see what kind of HEAVY METAL hercampus.com is serving us today.
1. NEW YEARS DAY
Now I know what you're thinking: "Glenn, this isn't metal. This is Scene music. The product of edgy goth culture and cutesy nerd culture, perpetuated by the sort of people with Twitter handles like "ZombiUnicorn", who worship Tim Burton like a deity and compare complex political issues to events in Harry Potter novels."
But you would be wrong.
True, sentences like "The lead singer is a self-professed Disney lover and real life Harley Quinn," may bring one to the conclusion that she is a walking cliché with so little originality that she defines her personality and style through that of an already fan-fucked-beyond-all-recognition comic book character. As well as her clothing line sold through Hot Topic, which itself (Hot Topic) ranges from "I'm too metal for the commune, but too hippy for actual shoes..."
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... to "I'm on the Autism Spectrum."
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But let's move past all the superficialities and take a look at the music, as well as its accompanying video.
Okay, somewhat difficult since the whole thing is superficial. Burlesque outfits, the tarted up lead singer smugly wading in slow motion through a PG-13 Eyes Wide Shut party, waifish male vocalist for the fans to flick their bean to, all culminating in the lead singer getting her heart literally ripped out (SYMBOLISM). The music itself fools you further into thinking it trite and cliché by being "dark" pop music with heavy guitars and a wailing emo of a male vocalist.
Some may say that they're ripping off Evanescence, but that can't possibly be true because no one in their right mind would want to rip off Evanescence.
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| Wasn't kidding by the way. |
Well right now I imagine you are on your knees, hands clasped together like a nun thanking me from the bottom of your soul for introducing you to this groundbreaking, woman fronted metal act. So here's my own contribution for this entry: Lee Aaron's "Metal Queen". A song that proves, for all of New Years Day's glossy production values, that all you need to be a metal God is a set from a 60s TV show and a large mechanized spider for your drummer to sit in.
So this entry starts off well....
"While Icon For Hire would not be a band that would necessarily be classified as Metal; it is definitely one worth mentioning."
Right on sister! Who cares about definitions and stuff!? Who says I should stick to metal bands in my list of metal bands?! The Patriarchy, that's who!
Beyond the band's in no way self-aggrandizing nomenclature of "Icon For Hire", we can all tell that leader Ariel Bloomer is a strong and independent wammin, who don't need no man. Not merely for her non-metal band being so powerful that it has the ability to be included on a list of top metal bands, but for her pioneering attitude. Specifically for "capitalizing on the fact that she is a female surrounded by a male-dominated industry."
In the song Ariel laments that her group is often pushed as a "Female fronted band", as if women making music is a rare phenomenon akin to a Blood Moon; which would seem to contradict the claim that she is "capitalizing" on the fact that she's a woman. But the fact is that Ariel is angry. Angry at what she perceives is a lack of a level playing field in a music industry that's so male dominated that people concluded that Lady Gaga must have had a dick to have gotten so popular.
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| This was a period in history. |
So angry, in fact, that she and her gang of Hot Topic revolutionaries kidnap a child and drive her out to the desert for some bad dancing and mindless destruction. Whereas in real life this young girl probably would have been killed, hollowed out and filled with drugs to be transported across the border, here Ariel and her clown car compadres destroy gender specific toys without once ever cracking a smile or displaying any vaguely human movements or behaviors; which works considering the music sounds like the T-800 having a stroke.
After this barrage of colorful imagery culminates in a pink mushroom cloud, the group returns the girl to her cul-de-sac and her no-doubt terrified parents, and instead of speeding away like the criminals they clearly are, decide to start up a small concert in the street in the middle of the night as grown men and women in onesies appear on their driveways. The girl's friends rush out to meet her and dance to the music, relieved to see their friend home safe. At which point I imagine the father, taking in the multi-colored, obnoxiously bizarre scene in front of him, leaning over to his wife and saying "I changed my mind. I wish it was the drug thing."
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| Every man before he dies shall see the Devil - English Proverb, 1560 |
3. BUTCHER BABIES
"As a biracial kid growing up in the Detroit area, I got a lot of shit for loving hard rock and metal, and seeing musicians that were also African American playing the music I loved made me strong enough to say, 'F*** you, I'm going to like what I want."
It's nice to see young people taking race so seriously that they can only validate themselves by the actions of people with their skin tone; but I can't help but feel there's a double standard here. I mean when I say that seeing white men on stage empowers me as a member of my race I get beaten by guys in black hoodies and Jack Dorsey takes away my twitter verification. And quite frankly I'm still not sure which of those is a greater violation of my being.
Butcher Babies features two lead female vocalists, which, I have to say, is straight up greedy. I mean female artists in the music industry are so rare that Sony Music has to use child labour to mine for them in third world countries; you'd think that Butcher Babies would be a little more generous and rent one of them out to a poor, marginalized up-and-coming group. A little bit of redistribution. All I'm asking for here.
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| Had to be done. |
As such I can't give Butcher Babies my recommendation since they are clearly in the 1% of heavy metal groups. But I CAN give my recommendation to the German metal band "Warlock", fronted by the gorgeous and talented Doro Pesch.
4. IN THIS MOMENT
Okay, speaking of whores; what's Chris Motionless doing here again?
And what's Century Media Records' obsession with putting him in a tuxedo with some sort of kinky mask and having the lead singer of whatever band whose music video he's guest starring in mount him like a fucking pommel horse?
Whilst I'd like to think they insist on him wearing the mask because he has the eyes of a meth-addicted shark (which I'm pretty sure the fans are into anyway), I must confess to suspicions of outright abuse here. I'm saying it here folks; I don't think Chris Motionless knows what's going on. I think Century Media Records found him on a street corner, pumped him full of black tar heroin and have proceeded to use him as a prop/gigolo for their depraved female artists.
I mean at least "New Year's Day" gave him a few lines to sing. Here he's just led, in an obvious lobotomized stupor, into a room by masked maids which, at this point, I have to assume was behind the scenes footage they forgot to cut out of the video aside from perhaps airbrushing out the length of elastic saliva that was no doubt dangling from his bottom lip.
Speaking of weird lips; Maria Brink (the lead singer) rocks this genre the same way she rocks the Elvis Lip/Partial Facial Paralysis look - uncomfortably, but skillfully. Her mouth hangs open like a recently robbed safe, bellowing out screeching symphony with the accent of a man trying to talk while being fed a whole grapefruit with a shovel. The music and video themselves are fairly typical for the Nu-Metal genre. Lyrics that amount to "fuck you" over and over again to what I assume is the writer's father and assorted horror imagery that ALMOST makes me want to go back in time and shoot Alice Cooper in the head.
ALMOST, because nothing short of recording a ukulele album could make me hate Alice Cooper.
Now some in the comments and elsewhere have pegged Maria Brink as the "Heavy Metal Lady Gaga." Which is absurd, because we already had a heavy metal Lady Gaga. And quite frankly she'd probably kill me if she heard me say that. But nonetheless, here she is. The Great Kat, with her rendition of Beethoven's 5th.
(Ed Note: I'd also like to thank YouTube's copyright claim system for ruining the structure and momentum of the post by removing the above video and forcing me to hyperlink to Dailymotion)
5. HALESTORM
What do you get when you take Nickelback and suddenly give Chad Kroeger a sex change?
Well you'd get a very unhappy Chad Kroeger, a criminal record and praise from Sharon Osbourne. But enough about my weekend. Let's talk about Halestorm. Specifically its lead singer Lzzy Hale. When Lzzy isn't taking the 'i' in her name and executing it behind a shed with a Winchester rifle, she's performing around 250 shows a year with her band, as well as being one of the "few female vocalists who plays an instrument whilst singing".
If I'm perfectly honest I don't have a lot to say about Halestorm (and neither did the article). They're an average radio rock band with an above average singer in their midst, and the above linked song "I Am the Fire" is catchy enough bordering on pop rock, perfect for teenagers in need of a confidence boost. Their music video is also kind of average, when really all they needed to up the ante a little was to feature a drugged up Chris Motionless tied to a cactus for Lzzy Hale to periodically molest over the course of the song. I mean that does seem to be in at the moment in terms of popular rock.
I will say this though; they ought to be careful out there in the desert, as they run the risk of bumping into and having a territorial fist fight with Stryper.
My goodness, I've just realized! All of the bands and musicians I have recommended thus far have been white and western! Well this certainly wont do. I know! I'll recommend the Japanese hard rock band "Show-Ya".
Cool. Now please stop posting parts of my dog that you people kidnapped through my letterbox. Or better yet, post the rest so I can attempt to rebuild it.
6. THE PRETTY RECKLESS
Well look, we can at least take solace that whilst Cindy Lou Who here does look like she's staggering away from the most depressing episode of Bang Bus ever filmed... at least Chris Motionless isn't tied to a chair for her to take her sadness out on later.
So what have we learned over the course of this post? Perhaps that when you spend all of your time decrying a lack of something, possibly due to perceived sexism or - in my case - general lack of talent or willingness of the music industry to take risks, you'll find yourself overlooking the very thing that you wanted to begin with.
And hey, I think I found a modern band I quite like. And oddly enough, it has a female singer.
So what have we learned over the course of this post? Perhaps that when you spend all of your time decrying a lack of something, possibly due to perceived sexism or - in my case - general lack of talent or willingness of the music industry to take risks, you'll find yourself overlooking the very thing that you wanted to begin with.
And hey, I think I found a modern band I quite like. And oddly enough, it has a female singer.
