I am so sick of the "extreme" vocals. It seems like virtually every new band that comes out has to use them in order to get noticed and promote themselves as being heavy. Between the Nu Metal invasion, the Melodic Death Metal explosion and the most recent Metalcore infestation I get the feeling that the only vocals are growls/screams/shrieks/barks/grunts/other animal noises.

On the flip side, most of the bands I am finding that use clean vocals are watered down nancies playing Power Metal or some type of boring, radio-friendly Alt. Metal. Out of these bands virtually none of the vocalist have the awesome power we once heard from people like Geoff Tate or Dio.

Are there any bands out there that are playing heavy music but with clean vocals? I know there are since I have been listening to some such as Nevermore, Evergrey, and Katatonia. But what else is out there?

I don't have an answer to ur question, but i agree with what ur saying

Hum, heavy music with clean vocals? Green Carnation comes to mind. But you probably know them by now.

Doom bands such as Procession, Warning, Griftegard play HEAVY music and sure as hell have clean vocals.

Orions Void, Crystal Viper, Tarot , Broken Dagger, Fire Trails, I hope it helps
If you search for old bands vibrationsofdoom there shood be many such bands , but you need listen then all

Try bands like.
HEATHEN
FORBIDDEN
AGENT STEEL
HELSTAR
LIEGE LORD
DEADLY BLESSING
WINTERS BANE
....

or let me say the US POWER METAL AND US THRASH METAL SCENE

Traditional doom metal also came to me first, but outside of that I'd recommend Communic and Amaran. Communic should be obvious if you like Nevermore whereas Amaran is basically melodic death dominated with clean vocals, except for one song on their second album which also sadly became their last one.

You want clean vocals?
try Cannibal Corpse, Burzum... just kiding


Nevermore ( thrashy heavey power )
Santcuary ( Pre-Nevermore ( same )
Anthrax ( thrash )
Overkill ( thrash )
Megadeth ( thrash - later a bit heavy )
Nuclear Assault ( thrash )
Cyclone ( thrash )
Exciter ( thrash, maybe heavy too )
Forbidden ( thrash )
Razor ( thrash )
Blind Guardian ( power )
Judas Priest ( heavy )
Kamelot ( power )



or you can just go back to Nightwish and Withing Temptation hahahahhaa!

I would also like to suggest Wuthering Heights, their last album to be specific. The lyrics are great, the vocalist has a powerful, unique voice, and the instrumentals are solid.

I might recommend Sabaton because their vocalist has an amazing deep and powerful voice, but their instrumentation is probably too simple for your tastes.

Iced Earth (thrash power)
There are some not-so-clean-vocals, but most of the vocals are clean. Check out Burnt Offerings or Horror Show (imo).

I am assuming you do not want any power metal [even the non flower metal ones, as TormentoR. mentioned, BG has extremely godly vocals], the bands you stated are more darkish in nature. Then again, the concept of 'heaviness' differs with every individual.

It is by no means easy to find the bands with the sound you described, but since you did not say 'death metal with clean vocals', it makes it slightly easier.


Amaran
-Heavy enough, though very strong Gothenburg riffing. Female vocals [not of the SymphGothic vein, quite a distinct style]
Speaking of female vocals, one of the best female vocals i've enjoyed would be Kimberly Goss on Sinergy's 'I Spit on Your Grave'

Arcturus
-At least the final 'Sideshow Symphonies' album, although they might be too avante-garde to fit what you wanted.

Angel Dust
-They were thrash once, but moved on to a more modern power sound. Might be too power-ish, but definitely not flower.
More non-flower bands: Symphony X is pretty heavy in some contexts, Hibria is outright in your face, but more blazing than heavy


Evergrey and Nevermore both have elements of prog...

Winds
-Hopefully they are heavy enough. But they sure feature only clean vocals. The proggy-ness and neoclassicism probably far overshadows the heaviness in this one though.


DOOM
To add on the the list of doom bands, you might want to check out the Death/Doom who feature lots of cleans since their debut. For example Novembers Doom. Due to the deathdoom roots, the music is still quite heavy/dark atmosphere.

Also:
Candlemass.


That is probably all the bands i have to offer at this point for absolute clean vocals.

In summary, heavy + clean + non pansy seems to be more prevalent in
non-flower power and power prog bands, and also trad doom bands.


If you truly want pure death metal with clean vocals, i don't see how that could work.
For BM, maybe some depressive BM would feature completely clean vocals, more exploring has to be done

Candlemass is just about as thick/heavy as it gets and they're all clean vox

Like someone said above Iced Earth would be a good choice, and maybe most of the good Thrash bands, which my choice would be Slayer. i'd also say some power metal bands, but from your first post i guess you don't like PM

One of my personal favorites is Otyg. A swedish folk metal band with catchy guitar riffs and an original clean voice.

Maybe some early Sieges Even, that is, everything before A Sense of Change, but also their later stuff is great, but is way more melodic, so I don't know if you like melodic bands. Also try Psychotic Waltz, I'd recommend every album by them, but if you want specific albums, try A Social Grace and Into The Everflow. Vintersorg is another option, but maybe you know about them, also I think Anathema should be another option, though they are very known, and they don't play Metal anymore, albums like Eternity, Alternative 4 and Judgement still contains some heaviness in their music with clean vocals. Maybe you know all these bands, but well, I only wanted to recommend some stuff.

Control Denied! Chuck Shuldiner!!! RIP!!!

I've generally seen Chinchilla as a good band. It is power metal, but it's from Germany and also closer to heavy. The vocalist does a great job most of the time so it might be worth giving them a shot. They do have some dumb songs as well and I don't like their older albums that much, but there are some really great songs like "The Almighty Power", "Fight", "Father Forgive Me". There are others as well of course, but those 3 came to my mind quickest. I suppose their last.fm is the best site, because the Myspace is a bit broken and their homepage has only 1 song off each album to listen.

A second band that I forgot to add is Grand Magus. That band is mostly doom, just more fast paced, even though they have mid tempo as well. Their myspace seems fine to listen to. I don't know that much about the band, because I've only listened to their latest album, but it was a convincing enough album to recommend.

You should check out Beyond Twilight. They are a Prog band that is very heavy. And the vocalist is very good and sings clean vocals.

I was going to say just as Galar did

Prog bands usually fit that "heavy music, clean vocals" category, depending on the band of course. But I'm sure you know everything about that lol

Yes, I would have suggested doom but it seems as though it's been said many a time.

"Traditional doom" and perhaps "epic doom" are what you're looking for. IN my experience, the latter has been a bit corny, intended to bring power metal and doom metal closer together, though give it a shot.

Outside of doom, I've looked through my iTunes library and can recommend you
Amesoeurs (BM, but with PLENTY of pleasant female vocals),
The Angelic Process (www.myspace.com/theangelicprocess, my favourite band EVAR, though may be a little too unusual for you),
Ascend (REALLY weird, has some gnarly, "unpleasant", "clean vocals"; KINDA like Louis Armstrong)
Battle of Mice (Post-metal with AMAZING "indie" female vocals, so indie-sounding it makes adults cry).
Eisbrecher (German industrial metal with the most manly singing voice you've ever heard; the more recent the album, the heavier it is)
Gojira (french death metal; only vaguely "harsh"; most people I know who listen to this don't listen to other death metal, and vice versa)
Pelican (refer to the "PS" section down there)
Made Out Of Babies (it's hardcore punk, though has the same vocalist as Battle of Mice, and the harshest they get is yelling, which basically sounds like a girl calling across a room)
Rammstein (ya know. Not that heavy, but one of the best metal vocalists of all time)

But there's a lot there. If you're short of time, The Angelic Process, Battle of Mice, and Eisbrecher (especially the latest album, "Sünde") are probably your best bets.

PS: "Post-Metal" is all very heavy and practically instrumental, so if you get tired of vocals, listen to some postmetal and prepare for some serious mental stimulation. Pelican is the most popular COMPLETELY instrumental post metal band.

Ok, 2 things that came to my mind:

Vicious Crusade: Awesome heavy/folk band
Subway To Sally - Engelskrieger: I just recommend you that album, because the other albums of them are medieval folk, and therefore not heavy, but this one is and it's great imo

I definitely recommend for you Circus Maximus and Amaseffer.

Try out Kiuas and Pagan's mind

Into Eternity have many decent compositions where there are stellar clean vocals and very heavy metal sections

Shadowkeep - The Hourglass Effect
british prog power band. music is not simple but not too hard to access and vocalist is classy
Eyefear - The Unseen
from australia and the vocalist is quite varied here. won't say both are super heavy, but definitely worth your time

I discovered and fell in love with both since reading the review here on MS

Kiuas (trashy power)
Persuader (trashy power)
Rising Dream (trashy power, but more symphonic/melodic or whatever)

all bands have clean, but very powerfull and heavy vocals

this topic is just great

Disillusion has some heavy songs with clean vocals, though they aren't completely a heavy music, clean vocals band, these songs could be Fall, Alone I Stand in Fires and A Day by The Lake.

Check out (if you haven't already) Bison B.C.'s "Quiet Earth". Not exactly "clean" vocals, but not growls - kind of punk-ish in a way. Definitely worth checking out either way.

I recommend Manticora (and bands like Wuthering Heights, Persuader) for heavy music with clean vocals.

Another band that comes to mind is Funeral. They play some heavy doom/death metal but with clean vocals.