Randy Blythe

Randy Blythe — born in the United States in 1971 — is Lamb of God's vocalist, and one of the voices that defined American metal in the 2000s. His delivery is a school of its own: a torn growl, articulated enough for the lyrics to be understood, without ever resorting to clean singing. That refusal is deliberate and held the band against the dominant metalcore tendency of the time, which alternated aggression and melodic chorus as a commercial formula. Lamb of God never did that, and reached the American charts anyway. His lyrics are political and social — war, institutional power, coercion — rather than fantasy or horror. Ashes of the Wake (2004), the record that projected the band, deals directly with the invasion of Iraq. In 2012 he was arrested in Prague on a manslaughter charge: an audience member had died from injuries sustained at a 2010 show. Blythe spent five weeks in detention, was released on bail and — against the advice of lawyers and his label — voluntarily returned to the Czech Republic to stand trial. He was acquitted in 2013. He later wrote a book about the experience, and the episode, together with his publicly declared sobriety, made him a figure respected well beyond the metal audience.