Lyrical Dissonance/Metal

Death Metal
"Tears shall bear his inner beauty and noble soul/and his body will come into flower by gorgeous aura."
 * The metal cover band Ten Masked Men specialize in destroying pop classics by interpreting them all as straightforward no-frills Death Metal regardless of the origin, so this trope is to be expected from them.
 * Pig Destroyer's music embodies this trope. Imagine a guy screaming and wailing uncontrollably over sickening guitar tones, singing lyrics such as "She frolics through the rain whispering love insane, her kisses exit through heart-shaped exit wounds". They call themselves "pornographers of sound".
 * Inverted in Eluveitie's "Inis Mona". Very heavy track that sounds like it's going to be about something negative -- and they're singing about a Welsh island, Anglesey! Understandable if one knows that the Welsh for Anglesey is "Ynys Mon"
 * Opeth has plenty of examples of mellow-sounding parts with sad lyrics (although they're often dark-sounding mellow parts). The song Deliverance, though, has a really soothing soft section with lyrics which are, fairly unambiguously, about killing someone by holding their head under water.
 * Intestinal Noose combines brutal death metal instrumentals with "fluffy cuddly" lyrics. The song Puppy is a prime example.
 * Lykathea Aflame has lyrics about spirituality and mystical energies with an Egyptian flavor - and grindcore fused with progressiveness and oriental melodies, though mostly pounding death metal/grindcore with extremely complicated drums. An example:


 * This is all growled while the drummer beats the living hell out of his kit with full force and technique.
 * Grindcore band Discordance Axis's lyrics are usually very abstract and thought provoking, but their music is extremely brutal and cathartic, not to mention the lyrics are pretty much intelligible because the vocals are all inhuman shrieks.

Doom Metal

 * "The Crow Man", a rather upbeat, folksy-sounding tune by Pagan Altar, about renewing the earth every year via human sacrifice.

Funk Metal
"Ring around the rosie
 * Used "Play With Me" by Extreme. Rather than being upbeat with dark lyrics, it gives us some of the most ridiculously dark riffs in history, and puts it to lyrics like:

Hopscotch, Monopoly

Red light, green light

G.I. Joes and Barbies"

Gothic Metal
"Join with the fallen ones/Open your eyes and see/There is no pain to fear/Your strength will carry you/And when the sky turns black/Gaze through eternity/To stars so far away/But trust me, they can be reached/"
 * Doom Metal band Sentenced are practically the embodiment of this trope. The music is very upbeat, catchy and joyful yet the lyrics are almost always about suicide. 'Excuse me while I kill myself' for example is about blowing your brains out, yet the song is quite catchy.
 * "Let The New Day Begin" by the Swedish death/power metal band Therion from their early (before they shifted to powermetal) album Lepaca Kliffoth. The music is fairly typical death metal with a bit of early power metal, while the lyrics basically amount to a message of perseverance and greatness of Man. The final verse goes like this:


 * Type O Negative loves to do this, from "We Hate Everyone" being sung deliberately in a dispassionate way to the upbeatness of "Dead Again."

Heavy Metal

 * Steel Panther is a novelty band whose lyrics are based on cartoonishly overblown misogyny - think Anal Cunt's take on the same subject matter turned down from 11 to about 7. "Community Property" is a ballad, the chorus of which is "my heart belongs to you/but my cock is community property".
 * "Run To The Hills" by Iron Maiden is a very epic, uplifting song about the genocide of Native Americans.
 * A very jarring example comes from the German band J.B.O., which specializes in parodies and metallized covers of songs. Their song "Gänseblümchen", translates as "Daisy", is about a guy singing a love song to a girl. This includes writing poetry and picking up flowers, done in Heavy Metal. In the third verse the music abruptly switches to a softer style and the singer goes on how he will torture the girl if she leaves him. Since it is sung in German it sounds doubly menacing. Can be found here
 * Judas Priest's Painkiller is an immensely heavy metal song which could rival the very dark Master of Puppets... and it talks about a savior who helps mankind survives and basically ensures a happy ending. Halford screaming the vocals in a pretty insane tone probably doesn't help.
 * Burn in Hell? Night Crawler ("Terror struck, they know they're caught")?
 * At first glance, Motley Crue's "You're All I Need" is a pretty straightforward power ballad which tells the endearing story of a young man and his girlfriend... take a closer look at the lyrics and it becomes obvious that it's about a man killing his girlfriend out of jealousy. "Laid out cold, now we're both alone, but killing you helped me keep you at home."
 * "Kickstart My Heart," an upbeat metal tune... about Nikki Sixx being clinically dead for a minute after overdosing.
 * Witchfynde's "Heartbeat" sounds like a typical 80's power ballad if you aren't listening too hard; the chorus is "(she said) Can you feel my heart beat? It's beating for you..." However if you pay attention to the lyrics, the song is actually about a female vampire that preys on lonely men.
 * Black Sabbath's "NIB" subverts this - it starts off sounding awfully sinister for an apparent love song... but once you get to the lines that imply mind control and reveal that the singer's character is Lucifer, it all comes together.
 * Then double-subverted by Word of God, which states that it's not the tale of seduction it first seems, but a song about the devil pulling a Heel Face Turn due to The Power of Love.
 * Metallica's "Wherever I May Roam" is a typical metal ballad, but the lyrics are about vagrancy and would fit more into a country song. Doesn't stop the song from being awesome, though. Word of God says it's about home sickness.
 * "One" is this way as well, or at least at the beginning. It starts out so light and, to someone, even soothing. Guess what it's about?. At least it gets heavy near the end but the beginning can be misleading.
 * Metallica's cover of "Die Die My Darling" is a song most people can't help but rock out to, and then you hear the lyrics. At least the name gives you a hint about the song.
 * Dog Fashion Disco did this a bunch, most memorably on "Pogo the Clown," a jazzy rock song about serial killer John Wayne Gacy. DFD's singer later wrote "Chloroform Girl," and acoustic song about a kidnapped sex slave who's "only alive because I like you," and is working on a solo project dedicated exclusively to these kinds of songs.

Metalcore

 * "Vide Infra" by Killswitch Engage is a loud aggressive metalcore song that is filled with harshly screamed vocals and thick and pounding guitars. But lyrically the song is about preaching equality, tolerance and respect to people different then you.
 * Used for comedic value by Psychostick whose metal-tinged modern hardcore sound is used as a vehicle for them to bitch about (as well as other things) very mundane and silly topics such as itchy balls ("Scrotal Torment"), a piece of shit car ("Two Ton Paperweight"), and how much they hate doing laundry ("I Hate Doing Laundry").
 * "This is More" by Stick to Your Guns. The vocalist sings "rest assure that with a heart that's pure, we'll be victorious and not let our hate get the best of us"... over a brutal breakdown.
 * Much of their music, for that matter. Not helped by the fact that the singer tells short, inspirational anecdotes between songs live, and that the newest album is called "The Hope Devision", and has a heart as the album art.
 * The hardcore punk band 25 ta Life love this trope. Not only do their heavy and aggressive sound and hip hoppish bravado conflict with their lyrics, but their lyrics conflict with their lyrics. The band intersperses hip hoppish use of "motherfucker" while extolling the virtues of friendship, brotherhood, etc.
 * An inversion of most of the examples on this page: In This Moment are known for Maria Brink's Metal Screams, and although she usually adopts clean vocals and softer tunes for her more upbeat songs, sometimes she doesn't. "He Said Eternity" sounds decidedly odd sung in a death growl.
 * Deathcore band Despised Icon have moments of this, such as their song "A Fractured Hand" which features lyrics like "If only I could look at you again with the same eyes that once cherished every single step you took/My heart aches whenever I think of that night you fervently whispered 'je ne te connais plus'/This is the end of something beautiful".

Power Metal
"Then you get up and look at the mirror
 * Some songs by DragonForce arguably fall under this in a weird way: not only does the music (generally upbeat, fast, and even uplifting) disagree with the lyrics, but the lyrics don't always agree amongst themselves. "My Spirit Will Go On", in particular, has both a catchy tune and extremely depressing lyrics that suddenly get contradicted by the final line of the chorus. See also: "Black Winter Night", which is a triumphant-sounding tune (complete with brass section) about sailing on endless seas of sadness as the world ends and all of humanity dies out. Then again, the band has implied that they write their lyrics based on the Rule of Cool, so...
 * "My Spirit Will Go On" has the darkest intro of any of their songs.
 * "Disciples of Babylon" is their only song that doesn't directly imply the inevitable death (usually in a war that apparently lasts forever) of the protagonists. What the song is about instead is a matter of heated debate.
 * It's about whether the heroes and their king have enough swords, of course.
 * In a less severe version of this trope, all of their songs are set in winter, usually during a snowstorm, despite their style being summery. They also tend to be set at night, and usually while waiting for a "brighter day" that never seems to come.
 * Several songs from the latest album Ultra Beatdown also qualify in a big way:
 * "Heartbreak Armageddon" is about a man who spirals into depression after being divorced.
 * "Reasons to Live" is at a counselor who fails to prevent suicide.
 * "Scars of Yesterday" qualifies as the big one here -- when you look at the lyrics, it's quite clearly about rape.
 * "Blood Religion" by Gamma Ray is a song about a vampire. It starts out with dark sounding music while Kai Hansen sings about his soul being in Hell for eternity. Then he screams "Yeah! Bite me!" and the music becomes upbeat (for metal) and catchy, but the lyrics are still creepy, if pretty cheesy. When performed live, it ends with an audience sing-along about "screaming for blood red vengeance."
 * Future Madhouse. Everything perfectly fits the feverishly giggling mood, of course, but lyrics as such are, well...

And you see the beast arise"

"Barely cold in her grave
 * Sonata Arctica has its fair share of melancholic love songs played to the fast, upbeat bombast of power metal.
 * It also has "The End of This Chapter" which sounds mostly like a power ballad, has most of the lyrics of a melancholic love song, but is actually about a stalker.
 * Probably the most impressive is "White Pearl, Black Oceans", another song that's mostly a power ballad, about a lighthouse attendant hooking up with a girl at a party the night before she sails away, getting knocked unconscious by her jealous husband, and then her ship crashing and everybody on board dying because he wasn't there to work the lighthouse.
 * And "Shy," which is sung in an adorably well... shy voice but is basically about the singer stalking his crush.
 * Without filling three screens full of examples it's easy to say most of Sonata Arctica's pre-Unia stuff is actually pretty creepy if you listen to the lyrics but on the surface is the audible equivalent of an explosion in a skittle factory.
 * Nightwish has a few songs that come to mind. First is "Feel For You" off of 2002's Century Child. What ostensibly seems to be a love song, starts growing grim, and once you hear the male vocal, you realize it's about a murdered ex, an unhealthy obsession, or both.

Barely warm in my bed

Settling for a draw tonight

Puppet girl, your strings are mine"

"Under the rain of a thousand flames
 * Another is "Eramaan Viimeinen". This is a very upbeat song with guest vocals from Jonsu, lead songer of cheery pop/rock band Indica- with depressing lyrics about wandering the wilderness alone.
 * Wintersun has several of these. Most of the songs are speedy, energetic, and sound uplifting. Then you read the lyrics: "Nothing but blood so red and deceased / Nothing but pain, I fall on my knees / Tormenting demons, I suffer and bleed / Only way out is through window of dreams"
 * Rhapsody's "Rain of a Thousand Flames" has one of the most uplifting tunes one the band's repertory, it actually sounds like Theme Music Power-Up material. Then along cames the chorus...

We face the real pain falling in vain

While the Dark Angel screams for vengeance

In the dead shadow of falling stars"

"The rain and thunder came crashing down from heaven
 * Axenstar's "Northern Sky" (he sings it like he's going on an evening stroll) includes the lyrics

Storm winds are blowing like hurricanes of madness

Earthquakes are shaking the core of the planet

Volcanoes erupting and fire spreads across the sky"

"So here I lay in my twenty-third year
 * Helloween has Star Invasion. It sounds like a near-epic and entirely serious ballad, with cool solo, not unlike e.g. "Why?". Even after.
 * Alestorm's cover of the Stan Rogers song Barrett's Privateers falls under this. It's a lively, energetic, incredibly fun song to listen to...until you actually start listening to lyrics like "Barrett was smashed like a bowl of eggs, and the main trunk carried off both my legs". The original song was much more fitting with its lyrics. And let's not forget the last verse, and the chorus:

It's been six years since we sailed away

And I just made Halifax yesterday

God damn them all, I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold

We'd fire no guns, shed no tears

Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier

The last of Barrett's privateers"


 * A lot of Alestorm, really. Keelhauled, for one. "Keelhaul that filthy landlubber! Send him down to the depths below."

Progressive Metal
"Maybe someday when, when this bloody skull has dried
 * The ending to Protest The Hero's "Turn Soonest To The Sea" has a Disneyesque sing-song group chorus with the following lyrics:

(I'll) know our city is in ruins

When our greatest source of pride

(is) a monument of dicks and ribs and the gender crown we wore

Where underneath, a plaque will read, a plaque will read, "No woman is a whore""

"It's a miracle he lived
 * Justified, in that it's about tearing down our society's entrenched unfairness and creating a world of true gender equality, but still pretty jarring the first time you hear it, when you haven't had a chance to figure that out.
 * Dream Theater has utilized the "death growl" vocal effect exactly once: on "A Nightmare To Remember", it occurs after the HAPPIEST part of the story where it is revealed that everyone survived a car accident. This part is, for some strange reason, very angrily shouted.

It's a blessing no one died

By the grace of God above

Everyone survived

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

"She was raised in a small midwestern town
 * Don't forget Solitary Shell and About to Crash, both of which are movements in the song "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence". The entire song is about mental illness, and these two movements are uplifting and happy. Like this little dity, set to perfectly happy sounding music:

By a charming and eccentric loving father

She was praised as the perfect teenage girl

And everyone thought highly of her

And she tried everyday

With endless drive

To make the grade

Then one day

She woke up to find

The perfect girl

Had lost her mind"

Rap Metal

 * The Rage Against the Machine cover of Devo's "Beautiful World" is an inversion--the Devo version is upbeat and happy-sounding—as are the lyrics up until the last line, which puts the whole thing in a different light. The RATM version, surprisingly, is somber throughout.