Here is my first entry for @psos new challenge: Music A to Z Challenge #A

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• 2 Bands starting with the letter A, my choices are:

1) The Agonist

Style: Metal / Metalcore
Country: Canada

This was the first band I knew where a Female Vocalist performed both the Clean Vocals and the Growling Vocals of the songs. Up to this point, many bands resorted to having a Male and a Female vocalist, with them singing alternately.

Alissa White-Gluz showed the world that a girl could do both parts... and do it well. This act of defiance changed the Metal industry forever. 😈

Here's the song Thank You, Pain!

Alissa White-Gluz is no longer the vocalist of The Agonist... In 2014, she was hired by...

2) Arch Enemy

Style: Metal / Death Metal
Country: Sweden

This band is a reference in Metal and they are the main culprits for the rise of the girl's power in the Metal scene. In November 2000, the original vocalist Johan Liiva left and was replaced by a German girl called Angela Gossow.

Wait! A girl singing Death Metal?

"Can girls even growl....?" - Many Metal fans asked.

Angela Gossow not only proved she could growl, she proved she could do it way better than many of the male vocalists in the scene. Many of the boys weren't happy, many Metal fans said that "Metal with a female vocalist isn't Metal."

Oh, no? Then see it for yourselves... here's the live performance of the song Ravenous, in Tokyo, 2008:

Whether people liked it or not, it wasn't long until Arch Enemy took the Metal world by storm and a few years later, there was a sudden rise of Female Fronted Metal Bands, with girls singing everything from Thrash Metal to Death Metal.

As I've told you above, Alissa White-Gluz was hired in 2014, to replace Angela Gossow as she left voluntarily to start a family and have more time to raise her child. Angela Gossow is still the Manager of the band.

Bonus Entries

3) Atakama

Style: Metal / Metalcore
Country: Russia

This is an old band I'm discovering at the moment... and the info about them is quite scarce.
It seems that they have been active between 2004 and 2013... and are no longer playing.

Here's the song Тихо, which means Quiet:

From what I've found out, Екатерина "ЭКА" Семёнова (Ekaterina "Eka" Semenova) was the vocalist of the band and is now singing in a new group formed in 2014 called...

4) Amely Sky

Style: Metal / Metalcore
Country: Russia

Most certainly influenced by the vocalist "ЭКА", this band seems to have picked up from where Atakama stopped.

This song is called Берега (The Coast):

And there you have it, three Female Vocalists who have succeeded in what used to be a men's world. Follow me and you'll discover many more. I promise you that. 😉

If you want to join the challenge, visit the announcement post, here: Music A to Z Challenge #A