I've been getting into symphonic metal bands lately thanks to my discovery of a new band, Delain, formed by the original keyboardist for Within Tempation.
Lucidity is a great debut album that combines strong female lead vocals with good symphonic metal. I normally don't like the growly-style death metal vocals, but Delain uses them as a nice counterpoint to the more melodious lead vocals.
Since I've liked this album so much, I've been looking for other bands in the same genre. Dark Moor is pretty good from the few songs I've sampled and seems the closest to Delain. Therion is OK as is Symphony X. Fairyland has a new album out that I like OK, but I'm trying to track down their earlier work that features the lead singer from Dark Moor. I'm looking forward to sampling Within Tempation and Nightwish, two bands which seem to be in the same style.
As you can tell, I like strong female lead vocalists.
I also like Blind Guardian, Iron Maiden, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, Blackmore's Night (not really metal) and some of Theatre des Vampires.
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Doesn't play well with others.