i'm looking for something with dark romantic "shakespearian" lyrics . my girlfriend loves cradle of filth's lyrics but hates dani's vocals. and being that i'm more partial to more extreme metal, my collection only has a few bands with clean, understandable vocals. any suggestions? thanks.

My Dying Bride maybe? Romantic, dark, and gothic-ish lyrics.

EDIT: Your request is kind of vague. Do you mean you don't want anything with extreme/harsh vocals; only clean?

Theatre of Tragedy were quite good with this kind of stuff in their early phase.

sorry about that. nothing too harsh. no screams or gutturals. less aggressive thrash style vocals (slayer, pantera, sepultura) is fine. the vocals are more so the issue, than the heaviness or speed of the music. but nothing too power metal-y.

Unfortunately a lot of the best bands in this style use growled vocals, such as old Theatre of Tragedy.

However, you could try Delain's album Lucidity, it has the kind of gothic romantic lyrics youre after, though the vocals are female and there are rare guest appearences by a clean male vocalist and a growler. Growls only appear on 2 tracks on the album. This album is a bit popish though.

I'll second My Dying Bride, and if youre going to try Theatre of Tragedy Aegis would probably be the best way to go.

Well then, i'll stick by My Dying Bride. They started out as doom/death on their first two albums but stopped using harsh vocals on The Angel and the Dark River up until The Light At the End of the World, where they began to use them again. Their most recent, For Lies I Sire contains cleans throughout the majority of the album though.

Yes to My Dying Bride. Listen to Catherine Blake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXrx8C7uNU

Enslavement of Beauty (http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=2379) have Shakespearean lyrics, even more overblown (but not as excellent) than CoF.