
Thomas Vikström and Lori Lewis currently front the vocals.ĭutch gothic metal origin, highly melodic, powerful soaring vocals with a distinctive theatrical flare. Swedish death metal origin, themes from different mythologies and practices, including occultism, magic and ancient traditions and writings. As such, they are listed more or less in the order in which I became aware of them. More bands will be added to this list as I discover them over time. I have included a History link that goes to the band's Wikipedia page if anyone wants to learn more about the history of the band and its members. What follows is a list of Symphonic Metal bands that I have actually listened to and in my opinion showcase the best elements in the subgenre. Heavy metal music continues completely fan supported, so if you like what you hear, please buy their albums and mercandising so they can continue to produce their awesome music!

I have also created a quick start guide of the bands, songs, and albums for those who want to dive in and explore the genre. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry for the early history of symphonic metal and how elements in the genre were foreseen by the Thrash metal band Believer, and the Death Metal band Therion that evolved its sound into what would become the Symphonic Metal genre of Heavy Metal music The women fronted symphonic metal bands like Nightwish, Sirenia, and Within Temptation are often sopranos or mezzo sopranos. The front singers perform highly melodic and often soaring operatic vocal styles. Though normal Heavy Metal sees limited use of synthesizers, Symphonic Metal makes heavy use of them, in addition to traditional instruments normally found in a symphony orchestra and choral music arrangements. Whereas the traditional topics explored by Heavy Metal can range from the political and social to extremely controversial, Symphonic Metal dwells primarily in the realm of imagination, legends, myths, fantasy, and epic storytelling though social commentary and exploration about our culture and the human condition are ever present in those themes.

Symphonic Metal hails its primary musical origins from Power Metal, Gothic Metal, and the classical symphony orchestra. drop b, drop d, etc), chords performed in minor tonality, heavy guitar riffs, death growls, and louder and faster performances than rock or hard rock music. It is a subgenre of Heavy Metal music with all the traditional elements of Heavy Metal including but not limited to the use of double bass drums, detuned guitars (eg. If you're interested in Heavy Metal Music in general, I recommend local Heavy Metal music aficianado Jeff Pearlin's website on Heavy Metal Music.Īccording to Wikipedia, Symphonic Metal is a subgenre of Heavy Metal that saw its origins in the mid to late 1990s primarily in Europe, specifically in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. It took me years to find out about this subgenre of Heavy Metal music and so I created this website as a jump start to help others learn about this music much more quickly and with greater precision than I did.
