7 Horns 7 Eyes Vocal Tips
Of all the main metal instruments - guitar, bass, drums, vocals - the vocal aspect is easily the one I’m the worst at and the most mystified by. I can’t get myself to make anywhere near a menacing metal growl without fucking my throat up, which means I’m clearly doing it wrong.
So I was happy to run across this post by Seattle’s 7 Horns 7 Eyes vocalist Kyle Wood, describing some of the mistakes novice vocalists make, as well as describing the basics of metal vocals. He doesn’t go into too much detail, but he does make it clear what the right approach is. Wood also gives lots of credit to Melissa Cross’s The Zen of Screaming DVDs. Having just seen his band perform, I can definitely vouch for him being at least a pretty competent and fairly versatile vocalist.
Also, if you’re into sludge and/or Meshuggah-type polyrhythmic bands, you should definitely give these guys a listen. They clearly borrow a lot from Meshuggah, doing a lot of ultra-heavy off-time rhythmic stuff coupled with doomy, sludgey riffing. Their rhythm section pulled it off surprisingly well, so their upcoming debut full-length should be an interesting one. Supposedly it will be coming out later this year.
