Clean Vocals or Death Growl? (Modern Prog)

I'll readily admit that I don't do growling, or anything close to it.  The first time I heard it, it was amusing, even novel; but for an entire genre and it's spinoffs to still think gargling gravel is way cool, it is way not.  I'm tempted to say, "Grow up."  But that's not it.  It's like having fuzz on your stylus (records...vinyl, ya know...hello?), in which only the vocalist is thus afflicted; but the other instruments come through with clarity.  There's an inconsistency in that inconsonance, and the melodicism suffers.  It's why I haven't played any of the good Mr. Doctor's Devil Doll LPs in years; it's why I hesitate to spin another Opeth disc.  At the expense of sounding old, the death growl is clowning and I expect singers thus sonically accoutered to wear big shoes, sport bright wigs and act like they're in an audition for Killer Klowns From Outer Space.  But that at least had the sense to be artistic:  their corn was cool.  Phlegm-spitters posing as singers, are not.    

In earlier days of such vocal unintelligibility, melodicism was, absolutely, shunned, late 80s, early 90s.  But I thought about the fact that a lot of those death metal bands evolved in the guitar and production departments, so you get neat, clean, technicalities wrought from the guitars, far more clearly than previously, and there's...stuff, amidst the glop, that wants to be evolved, to be progressive in its rocking--and many magazine reviewers have tried to put them out as such.  Yet, in contrast, those vocals are now up against much less dissonance than in years past (generally--and the death metal that wants to remain ever raw and underproduced, I hope never to hear again).  I agree with you on the distraction in Epica, same as the Opeth problem for me.  I don't think I could ever find a transition from the melodious to the harsh seamless even given some distorted grinding in the mix, but your point is well-made.  If a band wants to present pretties followed by a rockfall, it's like a poem where the fourth line never rhymes, when it easily could've, and we all know it should've.  

Clean, any day of the week.

I like something in between the best.

Edited by Snow Dog - August 11 2012 at 16:48

^I'm not exactly sure to understand these previous posts, but, for some reason, I have the feeling that these two opinions about the evolution of death metal are wrong.

But I can be wrong.

rogerthat wrote: ^^^^  Elaborate?  That death metal has become more technical and polished is less of a subjective opinion and more of an objective observation.  Whether it is a good or a bad thing is entirely up to your taste...and I don't think I was talking about anything other than my taste, so there's no question of my being right or wrong about it.

Ah, okay. Now, I understand what you meant.
But if I can agree that the genre has globally shown an evolution towards technical achievements, I'm not sure about the "polished" side: it can be true for established bands such as Death, Carcass, maybe Morbid Angel or Nile, but the persistence of the "Brutal Death Metal" tag on some new coming bands lead me to think that things are a little bit more complicated.

Ah, okay, "polished production". Oh yeah, I totally agree: nowadays, musicians and sound engineers know how they want the records to sound and how to make them sound the right way.
I like the songs on Napalm Death's "Harmony Corruption", but the production is a shame!

Clean!!

Death growl does nothing for me. It just sounds like one long ugly burp into a microphone, although Mikael Akerfelt (Opeth) and Max Cavalera (Soulfly) do a pretty good job. I like them both. I have to be honest I'd rather hear octave 8 coming out of James LaBrie and Freddy Mercury. The grace behind their voices with the powerful music that is with them, my vote is for clean!!

lucas wrote: Kate Bush had both on The Dreaming ! so she may have pioneered in cookie monster growls ?

Wrong, my young friend! Mike Oldfield did it 10 years before, with his famous "Piltdown Man" vocals on the second part of Tubular Bells.
By the way, had anyone managed to decipher what he's singing? I only understand something like "Shodonowa dowanogo"...

I can't stand the cookie monster vocals at all. I love Opeth's Damnation, but I can't listen to Blackwater Park etc. The music is fantastic, but the vocals just ruin it for me.