In this age, unfortunately, it is still possible to find people who tell women that they cannot do something just because of their gender.
In the past, this obviously happened much more frequently, and there was no fight to eradicate it, but fortunately, there have always been throughout history, women aware of the limitations that the culture, customs, and social inertia of the world have permeated and that have blocked your aspirations.
And they have become pioneers and demonstrable examples that there are no real limitations. They have all been invented by the status quo.
Women are capable of everything they want to achieve, and gender does not determine in any case that as human beings, some are better or worse than the other. As in all areas, in music and in rock and metal, the specific topic of this column, there has also been this type of women who, against everything and despite everything, have managed to stand out and are today a wide list of dazzling women.
They are incredibly talented who have gotten into this world that also seems dominated by men in number (not talent) and who have known how to keep up with the crowd and become the queens of metal. And what better tribute to them in this humble space, and in general, the one that everyone can do than play their songs, recognize their talent, spread their work to make them visible in a difficult environment in which they deserve their space, their recognition and its well-earned place in the world of music.
We have bands like SEPSISS, a flourishing example of female-led bands, in the new, modern state of heavy metal. Female frontrunners in heavy metal are almost an aesthetic, as the genre was historically male-dominated, with all of the leading icons being men.
Additionally, we should consider Melissa Wolfe, lead vocalist of Manchester, New England-based band SEPSISS. The female-led heavy metal band is a new, progressive take on the genre. She is a force to be reckoned with and reimagines the image of the frontwoman in our scene without resorting to predictable vocal textures or presentations.
Melissa embodies dexterity and good taste. She knows when to sound aggressive, deep, and cavernous, or when to sing melodically with that jazzy touch that defines her. At the moment, she embodies the pinnacle of what a vocalist in this scene should be.
The presence of SEPSISS making metal is a revolutionary and transforming fact of the “feminine” identity, since they are shown as active subjects who reject the traditional roles assigned to women. In addition, SEPSISS as a band continues to provide role models for the new generations of women who approach in style, thus facilitating identification with the “heavy woman.”
In this way, the existence of women doing Heavy Metal is a denial of the logic of male domination, for the simple fact of dedicating themselves to this music, of appropriating the sphere of the masculine and problematizing it from experience, by running away from stereotypes as a way to deny them.
The singularity passes through that ethos shared between spectators and metal musicians, which provides a strong affective significance to the style, in addition to having well-defined musical structures. Bands like SEPSISS who make metal appropriate the musical media within their reach and reproduce the typical of the style, and this has to do with communicating from that form of expression that is metal, but when women use those resources and appropriate them, signify and deconstruct the patriarchal assumptions that are underlying them, and give a new gender significance to their activity.
Instagram: @sepsissband
Facebook: @SepsissTwitter: @SepsissBand
