(TheBRHM.com) Let’s get into a few of my favorite screechers and shriekers in speed metal and thrash from the 2000s. Three of these singers are still going today performing and/or recording. However, we’re going to start with a largely forgotten name and band from the early 2000s.
Chad Brown of Engage
Engage was a Virginia-based power metal band that played speedy pounders. The combination of fast-tempo, explosive playing powerful, operatic vocals were the key for power metal of the European variety. Bands such as Blind Guardian, Helloween, and Gamma Ray had major roles to play in this direction with BG and Helloween coming from speed metal origins.
Engage’s direction on their 2005 demo was the fastest of Blind Guardian and Hammerfall with some great vocals. As mentioned previously, I’m a big vocals fan and Chad Brown’s performance on the demo was great. I was already sold on the band from the blistering tempo but Brown’s sing and piercing screech sealed the deal.
I first heard Engage on a Pandora power metal stream and looked them up on metal blogs. This would’ve been 2008, a year after their second demo and last release Don’t Look Back. That’s where the band ends, no word of what other bands the members went to or the different musical directions taken afterwards.
I always felt that was a shame because Engage was everything I like and want in a band down to the screeching vocals with this kind of lyrical content.
Songs to Check Out: Pain and Glory, Conqueror
Sergeant Saitan of Deathhammer
Next, we head to Norway for another favorite vocalist of that period, Sergeant Saitan of Deathhammer. This band formed a little after Engage but is still going strong today with banger after banger of albums filled to the brim with rippers.
Saitan’s vocals are pretty much what I’m usually looking for with thrash: dirty, growl-riddled with shrieks that can come out of nowhere. With the instrument barrage of band member Sadomancer (who also does backing vocals), Sergeant Saitan’s vocals really pop during a rapid, rowdy ripper.
Songs to Check Out: Fullmoon Sorcery, Rot Shreds
Jason Conde-Houston of Skelator
The Seattle-based metal band Skelator is a favorite of mine from the early 2000s. I first came across them on a metal blog and looked into them purely on the album cover of their 2008 full-length debut Give Me Metal or Give Me Death. I was not disappointed at all. There’s a lot of speed metal in Skelator to go along with their heavier power metal approach.
Hell, even the more mid-tempo (kind of rare for Skelator) tracks have a tendency to explode into a fast-paced pounder. It’s what they’ve excelled at since 1998 and the vocals leading the charge belong to Jason Conde-Houston.
Now, I’ve gone into the band’s style and vocalist in a review of their demo. The band has only gotten better from that release with experience, better production and expanding their topics lyrically. Sure you can still hear swords, sorcery, and magical evils but you’re also getting love for anime, video games, and metal.
And still you have JCH either speeding through verses frantically or growling through them yet always firing off his screeching wail like some fusion between Rob Halford and 80s Mark “The Shark” Shelton.
Again, this is right up my alley. It’s the same approach as Engage only the band stayed the course and improved with time and lineup changes.
Songs to Check Out: Raging Demon, Agents of Power
Adam G. Warrior of Dismantle
I’ve definitely discussed California’s Dismantle and their 2009 debut Satanic Force. It’s in my top five new wave of thrash debuts because of how the raw energy the entire album had. It wasn’t the most musically unique of that wave nor would I say it was the best but few speed metal and thrash bands from that period match that level of energy on a debut.
I’d put Power from Hell’s The True Metal, Evil in the Night by Merciless Death, and Apokalyptic Raids’ Only Death is Real in that same realm of roughness mixed with tons of energy in playing and singing. Sure, there were bands with higher technical skill and better control over their voice but that unchained approach was what made Satanic Force such an incredible debut.
A major factor of that was the performance of Adam G. Warrior smashing the gas on his voice on each song as he belted out his shriek. There were some songs where you’d get it multiple times and it fit whatever track the album had reached each time.
His vocal approach was more muted in the follow-up release Enter the Forbidden and while Satanic Force isn’t on Apple Music, you can check it out on YouTube.
Songs to Check Out: Satanic Force, Vile Spell
Staff Writer; James “Metal” Swift Jr.
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.