So metalgf (code for partner of this particular writer) and I constantly listen to metal in my car. In her’s, it’s either the Mountain Goats, Lady Gaga or ‘the Bad Touch’. You know you love it. But, whenever something like Kvelertak or Chimaira comes on, the first thing to be said is, “You know, I would like this if the singer actually sang.”

Even my own father, who likes a bit of Buble in his spare time, can’t really stand Opeth or The Human Abstract because, well, “they just don’t really sing.”

This is a very good point. Many people are instantly put off metal because of the growled/belched/farted/vomited lyrics spat out with no real difference in tone from line to line. I get this. I’m not going to go and tell people that metal deserves growling, or that it’s the best fit. Sometimes, well, it just ain’t.

Another common complaint is that the lyrical ambitions of metal lyricists just don’t quite match up to, say, Leonard Cohen or Paul Kelly or even Lady Gaga. Do I really have to justify this? Of course metal lyricists don’t reach those heights of poetic beauty.

But there is a way forward. Just don’t listen.

To the lyrics, I mean. Directed listening means you actively choose certain elements of a song to listen to, while backgrounding the other elements. I have turned this into an art form in my listening to metal – I almost never hear the lyrics. And I don’t just mean that I avoid them. I just don’t hear them.

Whether you can do this or not takes a certain level of discipline. It takes years of practice, conscious or subconscious. A really good start is this: listen to a song with lyrics you outwardly despise. Try and get past that to hear the music underneath. If you can, you’re on the right track.

Also, there are some lyricists in modern metal that are worthy of listening to. Randy Blythe from Lamb of God is one. The album ‘Ashes of the Wake’ is an album-length rant against the Bush government of the time and the seemingly-endless war America was mired in. By using a multitude of metaphors, including the Mafia-based code of silence – Omerta – Blythe was able to cut through the political rhetoric to give a ground-level perspective on events. It also helps that his voice is, in my opinion, one of the finest in metal today.

More of a drill sergeant bark than a belch, it has real emotional heft, and you can’t help but listen to him.

Try it with this song:

The beauty of the music – yes, I said the beauty in relation to a metal song – is apparent if you cut through the vocals. If you can, try adding the vocals into your listening experience. You’ll find they’re screamed for a reason. Mikael Akerfeldt is trying to convey the musical form of sadness. I can’t imagine you would disagree after listening to this.