Looking for suggestions of female fronted / all women heavy music
Looking for suggestions of female fronted / all women heavy music
Posting this here because the metal community seems to be entirely links to tracks and I'm not sure how well received this would be there. Also, I'm open to anything that goes more on the punk rock side of things. I like a little punk in my metal and a little metal in my punk (which is very subjective anyway).
Basically as the title says. I'm bored of my current selection of heavy music and looking for new stuff. To per-emptively get ahead of these answers: yes, I've heard Kittie, Nightwish and Arch Enemy before (actually haven't listened to Kittie since the nu metal days and maybe I should check them out again).
Two bands that I have found in recent years that I absolutely love are:
In This Moment. They started out as pretty much straight metalcore but have a noticeable evolution with each album, to the point that the most recent album sounds like this. Evolution is something I appreciate in a band.
Butcher Babies. Just straight up chaotic. And good shit. And they're even named after an old school punk song. Chaos and attitude is something I also appreciate in a band. Pity that one of the vocalists left though, having two vocalists was something that really set them apart.
Any other suggestions?
Edit: wasn't expecting so many great suggestions here. I promise I'll make my way through each post and suggestion here but it's going to take time. In the mean time, thanks everyone. At this rate I'm going to have more than enough new (to me) stuff to listen to.
- L7
- Lunachicks
- Veruca Salt
- Bikini Kill
- The Muffs
- Cibbo Mato
- Blonde Redhead
- The Evens
- Shonen Knife
Some of this is more punk or pop-punk.
To add to this already awesome list
- The Gits
- Bad Cop Bad Cop
- Amyl and the Sniffers
Missing babes in Toyland here
Babymetal and Band-Maid.
Heard of Babymetal but first time I've heard of Band-Maid. Currently listening to a track called 'Thrill' (I think lol) and it rocks. Definitely gonna give these guys a solid try.
Another Jpop/metal band is Necronomidol. Whereas babymetal is jpop with metal, I think they are more metal with jpop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYN932VzxV0
Birthday Massacre, Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil, Eths, Infected Rain, Amaranthe
Amaranthe's awesome. My workout playlist is mostly them.
Check out Unleash The Archers
Fuck yeah this is cool. We actually need more female vocalists doing the old school falsetto style (although not really falsetto in this case, I guess).
Spiritbox and Conquer Divide!
Spirit Box, Rolo Tomassi, Cellar Darling.
Poppy, more her new music than old. Some people don't like her style but it's not strictly just hard metal.
+1 for Spiritbox!
If you're willing to go more the punk route, look into the riot grrl genre. Sleater-Kinney is a good starting point.
I have dabbled in Riotgrrl. I enjoy Bikini Kill but more in an 'appreciation of history' kind of way than in a 'my new favourite thing' kind of way. Really liking the sound of Sleater-Kinney here though. Just listened to the track 'Jumpers' and I'll definitely be listening to more. Thanks for the suggestion. Might even start a new topic specifically about Riotgrrl one of these days. Also starting to get a bit bored of my current punk selection.
Try Sharptooth
I love Myrkur's stuff. How heavy it is varies widely from album to album, anywhere from straight traditional Danish folk music to the lighter end of black metal, but I like both ends of that spectrum
There's also Feminazgul, who I'm not super keen on but their name is so good that they deserve a mention anyway
Otep
Drain STH.
Wow, that took me down nostalgia road...
Cloud Rat
Holy shit, this is wild. I like. A lot. Definitely introducing this to my rotation of music, thanks!
Glad to hear! They have a pretty big discography now, all worth checking out. Though I think my fave will always be the album Qliphoth.
Nobody in here gonna mention Scene Queen?
Since i haven't seen it here and it's one of my favourite bands: iwrestledabearonce
Nobro is pretty good, they toured a bunch with Billy Talent so if you like that flavour of garage punk they might be up your alley
More garage rock than metal/punk but the Pack AD is a lot of fun.
Burning Witches is good
Mary Prankster. Tits and Whiskey.
So female fronted metal is my jam. Your examples have a solid range, but here's some of my picks:
- After Forever
- Beyond the Black
- Ad Infinitum
- Delain
- Within Temptation
- Unsun
- Cellar Darling (and earlier Eluveitie if you don't mind male and female singers mixing)
- Amaranthe
- Stream of Passion
- Illumishade
- Lacuna Coil
- Leaves' Eyes
- The Murder of My Sweet
You'll find a ton of female fronted bands in what (I think) is referred to as "scandi-metal) (Sacndinavian Metal).
Nemophila
Arkona, Kontrust, Genitorturers. All from quite different subgenres.
Kylesa
Just listened to the tracks 'Unspoken' and 'Running Red'. This definitely has new obsession potential for me. Thanks very much for pointing me towards these guys.
Best part is they just got back together after a 10-year hiatus
Brothers of Metal (despite the name). If you're into symphonic stuff, Epica and Beyond the Black are worth looking into. I also love Halestorm, but I think they're somwhere between hard rock and heavy metal.
This is not exactly my kind of music but I just wanted to say how cool this whole thread is.. you’re all amazing
Female fronted, Halestorm
All female, Kittie
When I'm not yelling at clouds, I like Tsunami Bomb
Blackbriar, Unleash the archers, Ad Infinitum, Spiritbox, Amaranthe
Posting this here because the metal community seems to be entirely links to tracks and I'm not sure how well received this would be there.
All the users refrained from posting anything but links to tracks because the only users posting were just posting links to tracks and nobody wanted to make the first move.
The Warning
War on Women is a group I really like from Baltimore. feminist punk metal. https://waronwomen.bandcamp.com/track/white-lies
Loved War on Women but they are tainted for me personally after I read this. https://lambgoat.com/news/35416/ex-war-on-women-guitarist-nancy-hornburg-speaks-out-against-band/
I don't think I've heard of In This Moment or Butcher Babies, I will check them out.
Meanwhile if you're not allergic to melodic BM, I really like Dämonik, example track: https://youtu.be/kRNHUFt8oPs So far they have two singles out and I believe they're working on an album. There is also old demo EP from 2018, but it's a little rough compared to these.
I'll try to check what else I've got that is all female / female fronted. I think there are a few more I like, but can't recall what atm
Entheos!
The Iron Maidens
Just watched their live version of Number of the Beast. Very cool! Tribute bands aren't something I would normally listen to but I'm already an Iron Maiden fan and this just might be a cool way to give their tracks a fresh listen to.
Vana The Pretty Wild Enemy Inside Not Enough Space Poppy Foie Gras (gothy music)
If you like death and a more extreme sound you have to listen to Crypta. All female band and they are honestly one of the best out there. Impeccable riffs, drums and singing.
Brutus. Stefanie Mannaerts is the lead Singer and drummer. Simultaneously! She is absolutely amazing and has so much power in her Voice. My favorite Band of 2025.
No one mentioned iwrestledabearonce yet, so a toss out if that. Rad metalcore band from when metalcore was rad. For (much) less metal/more punk or riot grrl vibes check out Amyl and the Sniffers and Be Your Own PET. Don’t come at me if I used genre names wrong with those.
Spiritbox has been mentioned elsewhere in the comments, but I'm not sure how common knowledge it is that they were started by former iwrestledabearonce members.
Not sure about the genre but I recently discovered Blackwater Holylight and I quite like them
Animal Alpha - Bundy is a favorite I return to every now and then. I don’t know the rest of their music
Loved this song on while playing burnout
The Gathering. Older but still good
Lambrini Girls, a little more political punk than metal. A little lighter than that but mannequin pussy when you're feeling a little more melodic
Synlakross is pretty decent but it's got both male and female vocals .
Castle Rat is a fantastic thrash metal band also (I think they're thrash. All the subgenres get confusing)
If you dig industrial, check out
Hanabie
Especially this live performance and their album from 2021 has some real bangers.
I posted this on a similar question a few weeks ago. I’ve been down the rabbit hole with these bands lately:
Stitched up heart, New Year’s Day, September mourning,
-chick singer led goth metal bands
Jinjer, Arch Enemy, Unleash the Archers, spiritbox (and iwabo), Devil Electric
Excellent question! Have you tried !gpral@hilariouschos.com the mod there is lovely
Hello... Hope you're hanging in there and taking care of yourself this evening. Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, I meant to get back to this thread sooner.
It's a real pity that I can't even see that community (and a couple of others there) from here. I wish you could convince your friend to open an alt community in more neutral ground. Or try to make some sort of amends with all of the instances that are de-federated with hilariouschaos. There's some big ones de-federated from it, even piefed.social, which I tried the other day.
If you're interested, now that I'm attending to this post, it seems likely that my next fixation on something to categorise and make lists of is going to be this very topic lol. I'll probably only be done in a couple of months from now but if you would like, I could post my results in Women's Stuff (or I could pass it on to you to post, if you prefer). Otherwise if you think it's a better idea, I could post it to gpral from another account, although I wish I could do that without feeling bad about Blåhaj people being blocked off from it.
And, just gonna ping your new account in case you never look at the old one anymore: @LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al
Oh dang this is right up my alley.
- Amberian Dawn
- Arch Enemy
- Spiritbox
- Metalite
- Otep
- Warlock
- Epica
- Within Temptation
- Delain
- Amaranthe
- Diamante
- Orianthi
- Sirenia
Bones UK, I dunno if they're a full female band but the two main ones are.
Jenner, theyre a Serbian thrash metal band.
Along similar lines, System Divide, though I think they only had one album.
Dark Moor with their first 3 albums with Elisa is great.
Have you tried hard techno? Check out Cassie Raptor
I only have a passing interest in metal, but I heard about this Indonesian Muslim all-female metal trio (Voice of Baceprot) a while back and was impressed when I watched the videos of them playing. It's trippy to see them wearing hijabs and all while kicking ass playing metal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v4728NJ7B8
Check out Lovebites Lovebites - Holy War
I got kinda (very) overwhelmed by this thread. I was expecting like 5 responses, so you thank you very much for all the suggestions. I have finally made a list from all of this and will be replacing just about my entire music rotation with everything here. Once I find my favourites, I'll probably let you know some time in the future lol.
Thought I might as well drop some names that are already in my collection that I haven't seen mentioned here, for the sake of anyone that might come past here in future. Including stuff that's more on the alternative / hard rock side of things.
General Alternative / Rock:
- 4 Non Blondes
- Anneke van Giersbergen (singer of The Gathering)
Old School:
- Heart
- Janis Joplin
- Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees
Alternative because off-beat / weird:
- Portishead
- Tori Amos
- Björk
Punk:
- Destroy Boys (been on my list for a while, haven't got around to listening to much yet)
- The Distillers
- Nekra (sadly they seem to only have a demo and this one EP: https://open.spotify.com/album/153G7zAHPl4hinlqhn1lvy)
Hard Rock / Grunge:
- DILLY DALLY
- Guano Apes
- Skunk Anansie
Heavy:
- Devilskin (band I discovered in New Zealand)
- Octavia Sperati (singer went on to do an album or two for The Gathering)