What is it about?

This chapter explores the musical composition Hate.Machine by Pierre-Luc Senécal, written for The Growlers Choir, a group of 13 extreme metal vocalists. The group gained broader public attention after their dramatic performance on America’s Got Talent, where the choir's growled renditions of “O Fortuna” and Britney Spears' “Toxic” stunned the audience and judges with their unexpected theatricality. The chapter details the structure, vocal techniques, and studio-layering inspirations behind Hate.Machine, analyzing how it blends traditional metal instrumentation with elaborate choral arrangements. The analysis uses music-theoretical and hermeneutic tools to understand how the piece manipulates texture, register, and form to create its monstrous and cinematic sound.

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Why is it important?

This work introduces rigorous analytical methods for studying recordings that heavily feature growled vocals. Hate.Machine serves not just as a performance piece but also as a compositional study of what kinds of musical expression are possible for extreme metal choir. By treating this work as an étude for extreme vocal textures and spatial arrangement, Smialek proposes new analytical frameworks that can be applied to both live and recorded metal music. KEY TAKEAWAY: Hate.Machine exemplifies the unique ways that extreme metal vocals can be combined and arranged in a choir to be maximally expressive.

Perspectives

I really enjoyed seeing The Growlers Choir live and interviewing Pierre-Luc Senécal, their director. I've long wondered what an extreme metal choir would sound like and he actually did it! What I'm most proud of in this publication is my introduction of the Smial-graph, an adaptation of the IPA vowel chart for musicians that maps vowel acoustics in black metal and death metal.

Dr Eric Smialek
University of Huddersfield

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This page is a summary of: “All Shall Scream!”, May 2025, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003354451-22.
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