Symphonic Metal Bands
Therion hired an actual choir in 1996 and Nightwish found a soprano the year after, and metal has been paying orchestra invoices ever since. Real strings or a keyboard pretending to be them, a lead voice trained somewhere expensive, and a genre that lives or dies on whether the band can still write a tune under all of it.
Apocalyptica
18 albums
Bal-Sagoth
6 albums
Battlelore
9 albums
Beyond God
5 albums
Beyond the Black
8 albums
Degrees of Truth
3 albums
Delain
13 albums
Eleine
8 albums
Enemy of Reality
3 albums
Epica
30 albums
Escuela Grind
12 albums
Eye of Melian
3 albums
Fleshgod Apocalypse
7 albums
Ghosts of Atlantis
3 albums
Leaves’ Eyes
20 albums
Lorna Shore
9 albums
Mortemia
3 albums
Mystfall
2 albums
Nightwish
29 albums
Shadow of Intent
7 albums
SinHeresy
5 albums
Sirenia
13 albums
Synestia
3 albums
Tarja
25 albums
Visionatica
3 albums
Within Temptation
24 albums
Worm Shepherd
5 albums
Xandria
13 albums