Herbie Langhans

Herbie Langhans — German vocalist — is one of the most active voices in recent European symphonic and melodic metal, with work in Avantasia, Firewind and projects of his own. His distinguishing trait is timbre. While European power metal favours high, clean voices, Langhans sings in a lower, rougher register, with a texture drawn from hard rock and traditional metal. That makes him useful precisely where a high voice would not work: dramatic roles in metal opera, counterpoints to lyric singers, material demanding weight rather than shine. That explains his presence in Avantasia, Tobias Sammet's project in which each track is distributed among singers chosen by character. In that format the diversity of timbres is itself the compositional device, and singers with recognisable voices have specific value. Langhans also keeps bands and projects of his own, besides appearing as a guest on other circuit artists' recordings — the typical path of the European singer in the genre, whose career is built by accumulating appearances.