Who do you think is the best thrash metal vocalist?

[MrTagoMago]

Araya was always my fave. And his vocals on SoH are all class you fucks.

Hetfield on the first four

Mille Petrozza before he started sounding like a frog

Russ Anderson from Forbidden was a good midrange singer with a decent scream

John Connelly from Nuclear Assault

I dont wanna start up another controversy over how little i care for Slayer but no Tom sounds pathetic on South of Heaven.

 

[Satanstoenail]

I dont wanna start up another controversy over how little i care for Slayer but no Tom sounds pathetic on South of Heaven.

BEFORE YOU SEE THE LIGHT

YOU MUST DIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHH

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

His voice sounds a lot weaker on South of Heaven than it does on previous albums. He sounds like he strains to even do the rougher sections on that album when he could have done them without much effort on all of the previous albums.

I think that he sounds particularly weak on the Judas Priest cover, especially in comparison to the original. The original version of "Aggressive Perfector" is basically the Slayer version of that song and shows how far his vocals have fallen by the time they recorded the cover song.

 

[Phylactery]

I agree that it's definitely weaker, but I don't think it's pathetic like MrTagoMago said. It's a different style as well, more fitting to the music on South of Heaven.

He lost the ability to do those high screams quite early. Any attempts at them live past at the latest 1990 are fucking shameful.

 

[Satanstoenail]

I don't think his vocals are weaker on SoH. They're more refined. They don't sound strained to me at all. If anything his vocals sound more forced on previous albums.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Although Tom Warrior isn't my pick for the top, to call him the worst of the 80's metal vocalists? Is simply going full retard. Dude is superlative between Hellhammer and Celtic Frost.

 

[CiG]

I usually don't care about good singers in thrash metal, I prefer interesting ones.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

He sounds more authentically tortured or evil (depending on the performance) than almost any other vocalist that I know. His voice is awesome.

If you look at him as a singer, which I suspect you may be doing, his singing (if you can call it that, I sure wouldn't) is technically quite bad.

Give examples of particularly tortured and/or evil performances from him, at least post-Hellhammer. Even when I struggled with death metal I thought his voice was kinda relaxed/drunk sounding if anything. Like, Schmier up to Release from Agony, there's a painful and strained vocal performance. Tom G Warrior is just some kind of friendly chromosomally deficient caveman grunting "HEY-EYYYYY!" to his neighbors.

 

[Phylactery]

I don't think he sounds particularly tortured or evil post-Hellhammer. I just think he's a cool, charismatic and an all round good metal vocalist. Who can deny that UUGGHH?

 

[CiG]

Tom G Warrior is just some kind of friendly chromosomally deficient caveman grunting "HEY-EYYYYY!" to his neighbors.

I fucking lol'd hard.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't think he sounds particularly tortured or evil post-Hellhammer. I just think he's a cool, charismatic and an all round good metal vocalist. Who can deny that UUGGHH?

Cool? Charismatic? Maybe in attempt, being a once-acne-ridden metal edgelord that discovered Christian Death and suddenly wanted to explore his inner goth. I've never come even close to hearing a Celtic Frost song and thinking "Woah, this guy sounds like a total badass, I want him to fuck me backstage". Cold Lake should be the ultimate proof of how uncool a guy Tom G Warrior was. And that's perfectly alright, if it weren't for Accutane I'd be an acne-ridden metal edgelord right now, but I'm well aware that I'm not cool.

 

[Phylactery]

"Woah, this guy sounds like a total badass, I want him to fuck me backstage". .

LMAO. So who does make you feel this way?

 

[CiG]

I don't want vocalists I like to fuck me backstage.



His vocals to me sound fucking apocalyptic.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Lemmy. Blackie Lawless. Young Bruce Dickinson. Pre-Broadway Jon Oliva. Anyone with swagger and grit. Those are/were cool singers. Tom G Warrior is a mega fuckin' nerd, which is more what I assumed the appeal to him was. I mean, in a way I get it, Celtic Frost had some of the most nerd-cool lyrics of their time, vivid and escapist and all of that, the songs on the whole are cool in the way fantasy/sci-fi fandom X can be cool and appealing, but he does not have a cool voice.

 

[Phylactery]

Thanks for the image of some random dude getting fucking by Lemmy. I feel fucking ill now.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

<Dawn of Meggido>

His vocals to me sound fucking apocalyptic.

He's tolerable and I've gotten used to him, but the instrumentation is what sells the apocalyptic vibe. The vocal melodies just seem goofy, the way he holds the last syllable of nearly every line, just eh. It's kind of campy like Tim Baker, only he could shriek and pull of a really intense and uncomfortable performance, I feel like anyone in Warrior's register could do what he did.

 

[CiG]

Lemmy. Blackie Lawless. Young Bruce Dickinson. Pre-Broadway Jon Oliva. Anyone with swagger and grit. Those are/were cool singers. Tom G Warrior is a mega fuckin' nerd, which is more what I assumed the appeal to him was. I mean, in a way I get it, Celtic Frost had some of the most nerd-cool lyrics of their time, vivid and escapist and all of that, the songs on the whole are cool in the way fantasy/sci-fi fandom X can be cool and appealing, but he does not have a cool voice.

I agree with this. I have the Hellhammer book and it was pretty obvious by the end that he was a massive dork that often smelled like piss and cats. Pretty much human garbage for much of his youth.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

Give examples of particularly tortured and/or evil performances from him, at least post-Hellhammer. Even when I struggled with death metal I thought his voice was kinda relaxed/drunk sounding if anything. Like, Schmier up to Release from Agony, there's a painful and strained vocal performance. Tom G Warrior is just some kind of friendly chromosomally deficient caveman grunting "HEY-EYYYYY!" to his neighbors.

Evilness of vocals is definitely totally subjective, so I don't really see the point in providing examples of that. It isn't going to change your opinion as you're obviously very familiar with the songs already. I doubt that we're going to agree on it, and that's fine with me.

It is true that he mainly sounds tortured during Hellhammer.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'm actually not that familiar with Celtic Frost. Obviously I've listened to the best material a number of times, but they've never been a band that I could immediately recall more than a couple songs of off the top of my head, and I don't particularly have any strong favorites. Gib examples

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

@CASSETTEISGOD posted one of my favorites on the previous page.

"Into the Crypts of Rays" is the first song that I heard with Tom G. Warrior on vocals and one of my first extreme metal songs in general, and has always given me an evil feeling since the first time that I've heard it.

"Circle of the Tyrants" and "Visual Aggression" are some of my other favorites from when I first started listening to Celtic Frost.