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.
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.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ por que no los dos?
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.
You might like some of Haken’s heavier stuff. They’re primarily prog but they go hard, too.
Try the album Vector and the album Virus.From Virus i recommend you try the song Prosthetic
and the song Messiah complex V: Ectobius Rex
From Vector I recommend you try the song Puzzle Box
and the song VeilTheir new album Fauna is really good and has a good mix of different styles which includes heavy elements as well.
Come back if you like them I will recommend more!
🤘 Haken! 🤘
It’s also okay if you don’t like prog, i recognize it’s too different for some. lol
Haken (pronounced “hay-kin”) is fucking awesome. They have a pretty wide range of sound too so most people who like metal I think would enjoy their songs.
So you just want instrumental? Check out Buckethead.
Ok, you got my upvote because I love some Buckethead but…
this is a deep well, you and I know it. Please give OP (and me) the “death metal without the screaming” album(s), if you know the titles. I know I have heard two at least that fit this bill exactly but haven’t found them yet. I have been searching tonight but you start listening to Buckethead and there goes the time.
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
Rhapsody’s Holy Thunderforce is just so damn entertaining.
And Helloween’s Eagle Fly Free is pretty high on my list.
I don’t know where the Hu falls in this but don’t leave them out
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
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.
Elder
Dvne
Bossk
Keygen Church
Julie Christmas
Cult of Luna
Sgàile
Nightwish
Skiltron
Glorryhammer
Creeper
No real death in that list though - the vocals are part of the genre
For anyone looking at Keygen Church, also see their adjacent project, Master Boot Record for computer metal.
You might like a lot of stuff by The Sword.
There are vocals but they are smooth and crisp rather than the xtreme death metal habit of trying to eat the mic.
And also they are just all round fantastic. Real, proper metal, but not cheesy.
So there’s a lot of ways you can go with this. You can definitely find instrumentals of death metal bands, but you can also try something new.
Haggard is one of the best in symphonic metal, and while there’s still a stitch singer, imo they’re MUCH easier to understand.
Native Howl has slayer played by some country boys on banjo and guitar. They also do a bunch of their own stuff that sounds pretty wild. “Thrash grass” is one of their better albums and pretty accurately describes their flavor of fusion (thrash metal played in the style of bluegrass)
Older Arch Emeny stuff is also quite good, and having a pretty lady growling at me is a novel experience. Angela gossow also shows up in metalocalypse so that’s instant bonus points
Dethklok does pretty well at straddling the line between melodic/symphonic/death metal, and if you like the metal without Nathan explosion you can check out Brandon Small’s other stuff where he isn’t growling like a cartoon character.
Last but certainly not least is The Lord Weird Slough Feg. Exquisite technical metal wrapped up in an 80s/90s power metal package. I simp for Slough Feg wherever I can because it’s EXCELLENT metal that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition
Slough Feg fuckin rules! Slough Feg Radio has a ton of really good shit to check out.
I mostly listen to death-doom rather than strict death metal, but there’s a fair bit of that out there. My two faves in the genre:
Draconian has clean female vocals alongside growled male.
Swallow the Sun has a wide range of vocal styles, but getting increasingly cleaner pretty much every album (along with clean female vocals on a lot of tracks).
Again, this is death-doom so a lot of the stuff will be a little slower-tempo than straight death.
Not a metalhead, but I do enjoy Bongripper from time to time. Mostly instrumental stoner metal.
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.
Can’t think of a super great example, but a collab between bad omens and poppy comes to mind. That’s only one song though. It’s called V.A.N https://tidal.com/track/340509886?u
Still has vocals but it isn’t just metal screaming
Didn’t know poppy was still around. She’s interesting but I can’t help but think that song would have been better without her.
Didn’t know poppy was still around.
She’s actually growing in popularity, opening for and collaborating with major bands. She’s booked on a lot of metal festivals as well.
That’s awesome! Glad she’s doing well
I think the main rift in that song is pretty awesome. Would be great to have a sample of just that.
Animals as Leaders, Thessa, Pomegranate Tiger, Myth of I, and Fractalize are great ones.
Stoort Neer and Vildjharta both have some really good instrumental albums.
Gore., Monolord, '68, and The Damned Things are all a little less heavy than what you might be looking for, but they are all great and have mostly clean vocals.
Polyphia and Chon are also both incredible but probably fall a little closer to something other than Metal.
