Like, I love thrash/death/heavy metal music, but I could mostly do without the vocals. Is there a genre of music (or specific bands) I should look for?
I’m a big fan of Arcturus, Children of Bodom, etc, but I prefer the instrumentals way more than the singing.
So, is there a specific genre for that?
Edit: Imagine Silent Night, Bodom Night but without lyrics. It’s not that I dislike the vocals; would just appreciate the track more without them. It’s like they’re just in the way of what I want to hear.
Edit 2: Thanks, everyone. I have heard of Animals as Leaders but am not super familiar with them. Will definitely check them out as well as the other recommendations.
For instrumental music with no vocals, try: Wide Eyes, Invent Animate (their instrumental versions), Modern Day Babylon, I Built the Sky. These aren’t quite Death Metal, but they have really complex guitar and drum pieces.
For with vocals: Sea in the Sky, Ignea, Unleash The Archers, Corelia (also has instrumental version of their 1 album)
Unleash The Archers’s version of Northwest Passage is a real banger.
Unleash the Archers are so good!
OP might want to play around with everynoise.com.
For Wide Eyes it lists one of their genres as instrumental djent, then they offer a sample of each artist that is also tagged with that genre.
It can help explore a niche further or discover adjacent niches.
It probably wouldn’t fit your thrash and death metal tastes, but sludge metal and doom metal are a lot less likely to have screaming or annoying vocals in them. I personally really don’t like screaming even though I like metal, haha.
Otherwise, acoustic metal is where you want to land. It can be hard to find in my experience, though.
The change of pace between death and doom metal may be a bit jarring for OP, but do love me some Avatarium.
Check out Night Verses
I felt the same way as you initially when I got into the genre, but Between the Buried and Me made me develop and appreciation for growling vocals. They’ve got a lot of really intricate and technical guitar work, which is what made me keep listening.
For (mostly) entirely instrumental track, animals as leaders is good, and I absolutely love Polyphia (they play at different times signatures for an interesting sound), and Power Glove is amazing if you like metal covers of video game music.
As for genres, look into symphonic and progressive metal bands, they might be more your style.
Check out a band called Pelican, especially their early stuff. It’s not exactly what you’re looking for but it might scratch that itch a little
Fuck yeah. I’m ashamed to say I’d kinda forgotten about them, so thanks for reminding me. Midnight and Mescaline is an absolute banger, as a recommendation for a gateway track
I wonder if AI vocal removal would be able to handle that
Power metal is more traditional metal but with clean vocals (no growls). Bands include DragonForce, Angra, Helloween, Stratovarius
There’s also progressive metal, where the emphasis is more on the intricate instrumentals, so some banda don’t do growls. It is usually less heavier than traditional metal. Bands include Dream Theatre, Liquid Tension Experiment, Symphony X, Tessaract, Haken, frost*, Porcupine Tree
I don’t know where the Hu falls in this but don’t leave them out
Rhapsody’s Holy Thunderforce is just so damn entertaining.
And Helloween’s Eagle Fly Free is pretty high on my list.
Maybe try symphonic metal. Bands like nightwish, within temptation maybe?
I was thinking this as well, add in some bands (album suggestions in parens) like epica (holographic principle), kamelot (epica/black halo), Symphony x (divine wings of tragedy), and even a band like battle beast (circus of doom) or unleash the archers (apex) and i think op will have a good time
Katatonia… Devin Townsend… Hangman’s Chair… Pallbearer
I guess these aren’t really death metal. But they all crush, IMHO.
(I ain’t got much else… I’ve grown to love the growl!)
Hell yeah DT!
Yesssss! 🤘
Anthrax
Haven’t listened to them much in years but I used to like their album, The Sound of White Noise. Singer can be a bit gruff but doesn’t quite scream like I think you are talking about.Given OP’s question I would suggest Worship Music as a starting Anthrax album.
Give a listen to Testament! IMO the music is thrash so heavy it borders death metal, and the singer ventures into growling only occasionally. My gateway drug into Testament was their Titans of Creation album.
Just to be clear; are you wanting heavy metal music that’s only instrumental? Or are you wanting heavy metal music where the vocalist doesn’t sound like a small angry demon with a cold that just got karate chopped in the throat?
The former but will settle for the latter. Amazing description, BTW. lol
Russian Circles for the former, Frodus for the latter.
thought it would be teen titans go, was surprised
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ por que no los dos?
I was the same when I first started listening to bodom. Just give it time and you’ll like the vocals just as much :)
You can find instrumentals in the meantime, absolutely. (Or even fan covers on YouTube and the like)
You can try some middle bands like Norma Jean. They have some harder songs but also other songs where the vocalist sings more than yells
There’s a fair few that straddle the line between death growls and clean vocals. Check out Agalloch, Insomnium, Words of Farewell, and Before the Dawn. There’s also of course Amon Amarth, still gorwly but usually clear enough to understand.
I’d start looking up “melodic death metal” that’s a good place to start for what you’re looking for.
Try out the band called Scale the Summit