Female-fronted goth bands - suggestions? - Page 3

Those are metal bands with gothic undertones. Not goth bands.

Jarboe/The Living Jarboe, of former Swans fame.

Astarte. Not strictly goth, but being an all female black metal trio, I think they deserve to be mentioned here.

I love Jarboe. Great stuff. Not sure why you'd list this Astarte band if he was looking for Goth music. Ohwell, oddly most people think that Goth music is basically dark sounding metal. Most Goths I know hate metal and lean more towards early punk and post-punk.

Because I read the OP

"Rock, Metal, Darkwave and so on are all acceptable."

But yeah, I'd take Jarboe over Astarte any day.

Oh Ok, sorry about that. My eyes must just glaze over a little when i see the word "metal".

Well, depends on what you mean by lighthearted. 45 Grave is, by far, the most darkly lighthearted of the bunch, but not in a Switchblade Symphony sort of way. Switchblade Symphony is more industrial-lite like, whereas 45 Grave is more Goth-punk. If you like silly dark sounding female-fronted bands you might like Rasputina. Personally I'm not very fond of them, but they may have a flavor you'd go for. You might also like Subtonix... very synthy all female-fronted goth band with a saxaphone to boot! I love em, but they're not everyone's cup o' tea. Skeletal Family is another one you might want to try out. Not so much silly, but the singer Annie-Marie Hurst has got a cute sound reminiscent (to me anyways) of Siouxsie Sioux, or Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow. You know, what with all those yips and squeaks they do. I love that stuff, my ex-fiance thought they were annoying.

Swans, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, Gitane Demone are all much more etheral and the singers do a lot of made up eastern sounding words (or in the case of Gitane, just noise). Swans and Gitane Demone are pretty dark sounding whereas DCD and Cocteau Twins can be light and new agey sounding. You've probably already heard some DCD via the female half of the band Lisa Gerard who's gone on to do a lot of movie scores like Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, etc.

Rasputina is heavily into that whole steampunk thing, creating an alternate reality through narrative lyrics. I find them fascinating, but in the same time what to me seems like technical shortcomings turnes me off (vocals sounds constantly a bit too stressed and instrumentation is uneven)

I felt like mentioning a few more:

Miranda Sex Garden: very vocal, at times quite noisy, but always very beautiful
The Shroud: gloomy, dominated by heavy drums, bass guitar and tuned down guitar
Throwing Muses (Early stuff): lighter and more siouxi-y
Collide: dark wave, a bit too, umm… 'stereotypical' for my tastes, but preferences are preferences.
Mors Syphilitica: reminds me of Type O, just female vocals. Bit more down tempo.
Jack Off Jill: punky, playfull. A bit 'adolescent'
Die Laughing: rock with gothic undertones
This Ascension: shoegaze, very melodic and atmospheric

Yeah, I don't know. They have a few songs that are ah-ight I guess, but there's something sort of novelty-like about them that I just don't care for. You're right though, a lot of people into "steampunk" are into them. Somehow a music genre came out of that scene and I don't think anyone knows exactly what it sounds like. I guess the best approximation would be: anything that has a gritty Victorian or turn of the century feel to it. Rasputina falls into that category pretty well.

Pretty interesting mix there. Miranda Sex Garden is one of those bands that people play for me and I always ask "Who's that?!" I can never remember, but I always like it.
The Shroud is a band I haven't heard much of for awhile. I think I mostly know them from covers they've done.
I haven't heard much Throwing Muses. From what I remember they were one of those jangly alternative bands. But I could be wrong about that... been awhile.
I don't know if I know Collide. Seems there's a million darkwave bands with names similar to that. I may know them, may have their albums, but doesn't seem memorable.
I can't remember if I've ever heard Mors Syphilitica... I probably thought they were a metal band and stayed away
Jack off Jill was one of those cheesy 90s all female hard-rock/punky riot grrrl type bands that popped up after grunge got big and disappeared by the early 2000s. In the vein of Hole, Babes in Toyland, L7, 4 Non-Blondes etc. but with a Marilyn Manson makeover. I put Rasputina in that same category... maybe that's why I don't like them. There's something sort of icky about all those bands that I can't shake. Reminds me of mall goths or pre-juggalo type music. That's probably not fair of me though... I haven't heard a whole lot of their catalog. Maybe they're great... who knows. If you like Switchblade Symphony, chances are you'll like a band like Jack off Jill and Babes in Toyland. I'm not dissing SS there (i like SS), but I think that's probably a decent guess.
I don't know Die Laughing.
This Ascension is another band I sort of know, but mostly through compilations I think. Not so memorable I don't think.

I'd rate Jack Off Jill over every band mentioned here, personally.

+1, at least once you get past the more traditional metal offerings.

Good stuff, they were.

Sirenia is *absolutely* female fronted, and their most recent album, The 13th Floor, is terrific.

I love Epica - Divine Conspiracy is great, and the brand new one, Design Your Universe, is also really good.

I also love Nightwish, but they changed singers with their new album, and the new one isn't nearly as good.

Within Temptation, Leaves Eyes, Darkwell, and Tristania are all also terrific, IMO. I like Lacuna Coil, but the newest record was more rock that Goth, really.

All of the above are either true Goth Metal bands, or Goth Symphonic Rock. This is one of may favorite genres of "New Music".

THANK YOU for that recommendation - I love prog metal, and had never heard of these guys - and I got "Formless", and OMG it's *stunning*. 5-stars. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Hey Rob...based on the bands you mentioned you should also like Delain. Both of their albums, Lucidity and April Rain, are very good.

Actually I have April Rain - and yes, I like it a lot