Best screams, shouts, yells and howls in music

Some prominent yelling in this Ezra Furman track

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everything from 2min 50 seconds onwards is a yelp or howl… helps that its also just an outstanding song and the strained vocals are so excellent.

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this is the main one, the one in the OP

a couple of Dave Portner/Avey Tare screams

if you have any unwarranted vitriol towards AC, please ffs confront and set aside those feelings, because they were always a viscerally real band + not at all a vaccuous hipster concern

idk. do whatever the fuck you want. these songs found their way to my bones, and the screams are as pure and inspired an expression of feeling as any on record

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It’s like this thread was made for me! :blush:

I’ll start by adding to a few other tunes by some favourites other users have mentioned.

@bozo Patton is brilliant at this of course. When Good Dogs… is an absolutely incredible vocal performance, screams included. By the time of King for a Day, he’d moved it to an art form, and the album has some of his best screaming often only a few bars away from great “traditional” singing. Cuckoo for Caca is a great example. Here’s a great live version.

@TKC Blood Brothers were brilliant at this. Love how they’d use the screams like some sort of really abrasive texture like a noise musician would, and even if the rest of the instruments weren’t all playing as loud as possible it would still sound horrific (end of this is a case in point).

You’re right about Daryl from Glassjaw. My favourite performance of his is all through You Think You’re John (Fucking) Lennon, where he also tempers it with excellent actual singing:

@Severed799 My favourite set of screams by Bannon is on Thaw. Not only just it start with a hair-raising scream, but the best set I think is after the calmer/unsettling bit. At 3:15 it sounds absolutely cataclysmic as the song climaxes and dies. And that’s just before Jane Doe (the track). Absolutely awesome.

A few ones I haven’t seen mentioned:

Circle Takes the Square- In the Nervous Light of Sunday

The scream at 3:10 sounds like an exorcism. Don’t know how it’s done but it’s utterly heart-wrenching and totally in keeping with the song’s theme of wanting to break free of stagnation.

Cave In- Until Your Heart Stops

Scofield’s warrior bellow was rightly praised, but Brodksy also had a terrifying scream. The one at 1:21 leading to those dual guitar melodies is brilliant, but I also love how he seemingly makes the song collapse by weight of his screams starting at 3:17. Sounds like he’s doubling over.

Chat Pile are also great at this. And where better to use them in a song about a person hallucinating that the McDonald’s mascot is in his room, smoking weed and preventing you from jumping out the window?

As do Pile (no chat). Rick Maguire mostly uses lots of more traditional singing but when he pulls out a post-hardcore yell it really elevates the energy to the next level. Isaac Brock vibes. The one at 3:22 is fantastic.

Early Unwound also used screaming/shouting brilliantly. Justin sounds like he’s trying to scream himself out of his existential dread. “I don’t feel strange/I don’t feel anything. YEEEEAAAH!”

And I’ll finish with the criminally underrated Eden Maine’s beginning of The Acidic Taste of Betrayal:

Think I’ll stop there for now. I’m all shouted out!

EDIT: forgot to add Converge vid.

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Oof Unwound of course, great shout

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I think it’s easy to forget about Justin’s screams because they became such masters of space and texture in their later years they didn’t need to use it that much. But he still had an awesome one.

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Love the whole post but the like is for CTTS

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Was surprised you hadn’t posted that scream! One of my favourite CTTS moments.

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Indecision anxiety! I think if i had to choose is go for something towards the end of Same Shade but… tomorrow I’d pick something different!

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Gosh, Eden Maine! Think about them from time to time. Feel like they had loads of potential. Remember seeing them with Mahumodo in my hometown.

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Their album is brilliant.

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Goswell @ 1:49 in this was my first thought when I read the post title.

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Aprils by Mahumodo is still an absolute tune.

Saw Eden Maine with Beecher one. Had a headache for a while after.

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Was gonna post reverend green, some grand screaming there

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They were the first band I really got into in an obsessive way - I’ve still got all their demos and handmade releases somewhere. Ended up playing with *shels, which was a bit of a high point for me!

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Just remembered the actual right answer

7.30 on but the whole song is a masterclass

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This BUT all of the middle section of Do You Doubt Me Traitor

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Always liked the little scream just after 1m here

The final verse of Kissing Families by Silversun Pickups. The whole thing, but especially that “WELL SEASONS ALWAYS SHIFT TOO LAAAAAAAATE” - it’s like a full body burst of horror. It’s such a shame they lost this aspect over time and smoothed themselves out.

Also, the Lazy Eye explosion. One of the most rewarding moments in all of music.

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