While much of the world knows English, there are a lot of great bands out there who prefer sing in their native language. Sometimes I suppose it could be annoying to not understand what a song is about, but for the most part, I love bands who sing in other languages. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge fan of Asian metal, and there are some great bands who sing in most major languages known to man. Any other fans out there?

More importantly, what languages do you think work best in metal? For me personally, I love Japanese metal. A lot of people would disagree with me because the heavy accents can be a bit much for some, and then there is the ever present problem of Engrish (Japanese people love to throw English into their music, even when they barely grasp it. Usually in the chorus lines). On the other hand, Japanese is an incredibly versatile syllabic language perfect for setting to music. A few examples of some great Japanese heavy metal:

Hellen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMX810KRBc0

Crowley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stfnbnw2q6g

Onmyouza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNfgqOGyHGI

Sniper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZYzXCF5VUI

Of course there are many languages out there which are great for metal. I have found quite a lot of good French and Spanish metal. There are also some great ones in Russian, Czech, Swedish, and so on. I'll post a few more of my favorite foreign language bands, tell me what you think, add your own, or talk about which languages you think suit metal the best! (I'm only posting one of each for now, to keep from adding too many links to check out. Feel free to explore a language or country of interest more thoroughly)

Sifon (Czech): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeqiMihFR5Q

Magia Negra (Spanish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpfpu23LTfI

H Bomb (French): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziyz5guQNPQ

Crystal Zone (Chinese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqMrJ8i53R0

Hurd (Mongolian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI2WHB-g5E8

Saxo (Malaysian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScJ4RLBy68

Armageddon (Korean): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOwTeLdSNNY

Leviticus (Swedish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB88b11d_6w

Y Diawled (Welsh): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngq9bsYH9As

Aria (Russian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diwC-gfRd8U

Pokolgep (Hungarian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQNmEVddZE

For my own post I chose heavy metal bands with clean vocals, because in black and death metal it almost doesn't (usually) make a difference what language a band is singing in, but feel free to discuss any genre

I found it surprising how much I had to think to think to remember some bands without harsh vocals which sing in languages other than English. I could remember these:

- Burzum’s latest album is in (shoddy, I heard) Old Norse, a dead language. Not all of it is harsh vocals.
- Fratello Metallo sang in Italian.
- Nightwish has a song in a Native American language (Navajo?) and a bunch in Finnish
- Not metal, but rock band Picä Tumilho uses a language with only 20,000 speakers (Mirandese).

My favourite off the top of my head would be Genocide (Nippon), they're like Mercyful Fate's bastard child from Japan.

Majority of pagan/viking metal bands sing in their native language...

Really? I have no way of judging, but I assumed that Vikernes would be well-read in the phonetics of old Norse through his studies. I mean, he wrote a book based on his studies of an old Norse (or was it proto-Norse?) poem.

OT: I'm a big fan of X-Japan. They use a mish-mash of Japanese and English in the lyrics, but for the most part it's all in Japanese. Something about the way the dude sings works better with the Japanese language, imo. The "whiny" aspect to it, although I don't mean that in a critical sense at all.

Great ones there. I think Japan is a treasure trove for heavy metal. I also definitely think all the Japanese bands sing better in their own language, it seems to flow very naturally with music. The English parts can be pretty off-putting at times, although some do it better than others.

Agreed. While we're on the subject of Japan, Loudness and Bow Wow also has some great material, quite a bit in English too but they do both quite well imo.

Old Norse. Proto-Norse was much older.

The problem is that knowing a language doesn’t mean you can pronounce its phonemes as well. People singing 13th century Portuguese songs often pronounce it like modern Spanish.

oh, undoubtedly - I'd just assumed that Vikernes would have taken care to pronounce his ON as perfectly as possible. I mean, his interest seems to extend a little beyond the usual "we were vikings, lol"-type shit. But yeah, I can totally understand - his Norwegian is as far from Old Norse as my English is from Old English (I took an Old Saxon course last semester and found that out the hard way, lol)

Another one on-topic would be the few songs Sepultura did in Portugese/Spanish while they were in their "transitory" phase. I know the nu-metal sound isn't very popular here but a lot of the "jungle" metal they were putting out kept my boat afloat, if you know what I mean.

There are plenty of black metal bands that have vocals that are pretty easy to understand. Arckanum for example. You can hear everything he says. His songs are also in old Icelandic and old Swedish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpIOq58Jno

Eluveitie had songs in gaulish, didn't they? Like Slania's song and Omnos. Sounds pretty cool. I wonder what other bands sing in dead/old languages, like Arckanum as Garyuu mentioned


Can you give any examples of this?

Tip of the iceberg my friend but both great bands, and they do manage pretty well with English (Anthem and Heavy Metal Army are a couple of others that do this well). I guess I more or less prefer the lyrics to be in Japanese when the band isn't well versed in English. There are some real bad examples of Engrish out there (Mephistopheles - Be Carry In Gambling comes to mind ). I would also say that the thick accent is much less noticeable when they sing in their own language.

As far as the black metal stuff goes, like I said, feel free to post it. I like that too. And I am aware that there is plenty of black and death metal that is easy to understand. I was simply posting some bands in which the vocals are at their clearest, generally just for the purpose of this thread (and to spread awareness of a few generally unknown old school heavy metal bands which I think are pretty cool).

Been listening to a lot of The Black lately. The guy sing in Latin, of all things. The weird chant-like Latin mixed with doom metal makes for a pretty interesting sound.

Check out lyrics in Estonian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNvOz-6cds

verjnuarmu is a band i think might work better for non-finns as their vocals are in the savo -dialect, which just sounds corny and forced

also, kypck are a finnish band with russian lyrics (also featuring an ak-47 shaped guitar and a 1-string bass)

I bet that was the norm in Soviet Union.

Have you actually read any of his stuff on the old norse mythology and such?

'lol vikings' would be a step up in both accuracy and depth.

Search Cantigas de Santa Maria or CSM on Youtube. One word I specifically remember being wrong is falar (which means “to speak” in both old and modern Portuguese) pronounced as if it were modern Spanish fallar or fayar.

That's probably because Portugal as it was in the 13th century was still a recent Spanish ex-county. Plus there's the whole Arabic (Moorish to be more precise) influence in the tongue and costumes. And on top of that by that point in time we hadn't even yet conquered our whole territory as we have it now, we were still a country to be.

Brazilian people speak Portuguese by the way, there isn't such a thing as a Brazilian language. You have Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil), which bare its share of differences.

I guess that one of the most renowned examples of Portuguese singing in metal would have to be Moonspell, I mean "Alma Mater" right? Ava Inferi also sings some songs in Portuguese though and the way the singer uses the voice reminds me a lot of Dulce Pontes, which is a very renowned singer internationally.

In my opinion, Russian (and other Slavic languages like Ukrainian, Belarusian, etc.) is a perfect language for metal, because it sounds beautiful when sung and ferocious when growled or shrieked.

Greek works well in chanting passages, or in atmospheric music in general (especially ancient Greek, when the band knows their shit), but I think it sound great with most subgenres (death/black/grind) except maybe heavy/trad metal. That just sounds a little awkward.

Portuguese is my native language. I'm familiar with medieval Portuguese in written form, but I don't know how it sounds and how much it differs from modern Iberian Portuguese in pronounciation


The "Galego-Português" spoken at that time was a language as distinct from other various contemporaneous Spanish languages as modern Portuguese and Galician is from modern Castilian. Spain had moorish influence too, so that shouldn't be a problem.

You're Portuguese?!

Indeed. My point above being that if you catch a traditional tune trying to emulate the enunciation of words from that age you won't be listening to the current Portuguese language, but rather to its archaic form that later on developed into the modern variant.

Since there are many of you on this board to whom English is not your native language, I'm curious to know, since English is so prevalent in metal, what you think of the language and how it sounds in lyrics. That may be off-topic, though.

The Spanish language didn’t influence Old Portuguese pronunciation and neither did Arabic, although both a significant amount loanwords. Pronouncing Old Portuguese to make it sound like modern Spanish is wrong. In fact, even singing in Old Spanish with modern Spanish pronunciation would be outright wrong. Errrrm this is getting way off topic, but I’d like to continue discussion so send me messages if you’d like to.

Back on topic: what about some bands which sing in Latin? And what about Classical Latin instead of Ecclesiastical Latin (which is the most common form of Latin in singing)?



The language as a whole? No offense but I think English is pretty weak. Nouns have no gender, no case, verbs have only 5 inflected forms and adjectives have no inflection at all. English also picks up too many loanwords.

On the other hand, it sounds pretty awesome in metal. Germanic languages in general sound great in metal. I don’t know why.

BTW remembered two good bands:
- Polish: CETI
- Russian: Клиника

Brazilian.

To don't keep it too off-topic, i'm pretty sure black metal band Nortada Gelada sings in portuguese, though it's hard to say for sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PMjLwHjWM4

Another interesting example, Yn Gizarm, which sings in chinese http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LSHFjh4-ws



I don't think english is a very exciting language, but it sounds good in metal, and meshes well with pretty much every subgenre. Sometimes it's hard to pull off some kinds of metal on other languages, but english does not have this problem. I think it's because of this, along it's the international aspect , is why most bands choose to sing in english instead of their own language.

This is basically what the thread is about, only in reverse. Interesting twist on the discussion. I can't really comment because English is my primary language. I do like a lot of bands who sing in foreign languages BECAUSE they sound different. A lot of people, myself included, view vocals as another instrument. In that context, a foreign language or accent may sound like a different instrument or an exotic tone of an instrument. Since English is the primary language for a vast majority of metal bands, I find it hard to believe that this exotic quality exists when the sound is so common. Perhaps people who don't speak English as their first language would have a different opinion?

English is a second language to me. To tell you the truth, I think you've got it right and Anglo-Saxon culture is so prevalent from childhood that it can't really be deemed exotic by many, I suspect. That's been an increasingly worldwide phenomenon since WWII. Depending on their generation, everybody from Japan to Italy to Sweden has been exposed since childhood to The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Elvis, Madonna, U2. In turn, many international artists started using the language, so much so that for many it's actually a turn off to sing in their native tongue. Some have even gone farther erasing traces of their actual cultural background and ethnicity (Mike fucking Wead... seriously?).

It's actually *more exotic* for me when I hear a metal band singing in my native language! I suspect this is the case for many.

Personally, I think the English language works really well for metal and I love several bands in the genre but I'm also of the opinion that metal would greatly benefit if artists from other backgrounds actually highlighted this instead of faking it into being something they're not.

OK so two things then.

Off-topic: Archaic languages in Europe had their roots in old tribes and/or dominant tribes that were occupying places where they weren't native. It's safe to say that the Iberian languages have as much to owe from Arabic tribes as much as they do from Latin, in this case descending from the Roman occupation. No language came from nowhere and as such they're a mesh of many influences. Even the Germanic languages had an enormous influence in what is current Portuguese as we have a lot of neologisms from Anglo-Saxony for instance. But I digress. My point being that one can't compare the languages used on the 13th century to the current ones in Iberia. Although many traces are left and still used the evolution of those language has been immense.

On-topic: I think that Eastern languages in metal are pretty awesome, especially in extreme metal. I wouldn't possibly imagine Aspid sung in English as it would feel really soulless, and as it is in Russian is actually part of its charm. A band like Avenger (CZE) is another good example of how an Eastern language can provide for a more exotic touch in metal.

I think that English is so usual that it's actually unconsciously dubbed by our brains as "regular", but I don't think it's boring or anything like that. Probably more than 75% of what I listen to is sung in English and I have no problem with that. On the other hand I think that some languages do give metal some extra flair. Nordic languages in black and folk give it a very nice touch, and as I said above Eastern languages in death or black have also a great impact in how I listen to the music.

Going even further on this matter I have to say that I for one don't appreciate singing in my native language that much. Portuguese is a really complex language when compared to English for instance, and there's something about the pronunciation of the words that doesn't click. Maybe it's because of the sibilance of the language which makes it seem like half the words are whispered, I really don't know for sure where to point it exactly. I do know that it sounds weird, and even more in metal which demands a bit more of rhythm and aggression than mainstream music.

Krisiun should use their home language on their next album. This one song off their new album sounded pretty creepy in a good way.

definitely - if i were to list the first 20 finnish metal bands that come to mind, probably no more than 2 or 3 of them would have lyrics in finnish (mokoma and stam1na come to mind quickly, but likely only because of the subject at hand)

Dir En Grey, since they are now Death/Prog/Experimental whatever the hell else since they don't really have a genre.
The most amazing live band I've ever see. Most amazing vocalist too. Never heard anyone who can pull off insane high pitched screams, monstrous guttural growls, agonizing harsh vocals, operatic vocals, beautiful clean vocals, and vocal solos all in one. They are the most experimental band and have been around since 97. I didn't like them for a while, but now one of my all time favorite bands; a real gem.
They got me into Japans scene. Japan seems to know how to take what is out there and do them 200% better.
For those of you who only prefer metal:

Different Sense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG3U0tsiMwo
Vinushka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdceudJz8jA

Sick Live Vids (see what I mean? 1st one is eerie as shit):

Tsumi to Kisei
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqrlIY1aqC8

Decayed Crow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbDlaolz0KQ

Reiketsu Nariseba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-webgQxRsk

Well, English is very hot, tuny and attractive language for most Czech people and it is very popular especially with youth. I am not an exemption. I always liked English and Heavy Metal music was one of the main reasons for me to start learning it. To my ears, English sounds lovely in each music genre.
Concerning other languages, I have no preferece. Every language has its own charm and I can listen to everything as long as the music is good.

Peste Noire is one of the few bands I listen to that sing in their native language, french.

A majority of songs by Alcest are in French. Gotta be a little biased about them as they are one of my favorites.

Incidentally, I've noted that particularly many Czech bands that I know sing in their mothertongue. Maniac Butcher, Melancholy Pessimism, !T.O.O.H.!, Opitz/Contrastic, Root, Stíny Plamenů and a few I forget. Right now I could name far less Czech bands singing in English.

I'm german and the language i dislike the most in metal is, well... german!
But i think most germans think this way...
Other than the usual english i like eastern european- (especially polish), scandinavian- and asian languages the most.
I can't get into western european languages as well, like french or spanish, sorry.
But there is one german band that i really can recommend, it's Eisregen.
They are really worth to check them out since they are very different, i really love the hard sound mixed with the keyboards and the violin...
Most of their older albums are banned in germany because of the brutality in the lyrics...
Here is a good example if you're interested

chaos_orb, I agree that German is perhaps not the most suitable language for singing, as it can sound quite harsh and abrasive even unintentionally. However, I think that element can be made excellent use of. German often sounds quite good in black metal, for example.

Yes i agree with you on this one, when listening to german stuff i prefer the black metal stuff or the ones with harsh vocals, everything else is mostly

I thought it was due to the graphic nature of their covers?! Oh well, maybe it's both. They're not pretty, like at all!

If there's a language I can't personally stand in my music it would have to be French. I hate the pronunciation, the phonetics, the way that all the songs seem almost pussyfied when sang in that language. Ugh... it just gives me the creeps.