I’m developing some pretty odd taste in music…
I REALLY like metal, but REALLY dislike the screamy-yelly bits, which I acknowledge is kind of contradictory.
I think I just don’t like vocals, period, metal or otherwise. Anyway…
The symphonic stuff especially, like Blind Guardian (Wheel of Time, Orchestral is probably my all time favorite song!), Nightwish, and Therion, are fuckin amazing; but even within that subset the vocals are kinda overbearing for my taste - a lot of them have operatics, which I also file under the “eh, I’d rather not” category. Fortunately they have some instrumental versions of their songs, AND I LOVE THEM!
…but I keep plugging them into services like Pandora, Spotify, and Youtube Music, and I get either 1) “Oh you like any type of metal? Here’s a playlist of 16 hours of dudes ejecting the entire contents of their lungs into a microphone! BWAAAAAAAAAA—” or, 2) "Oh, you like symphonic metal? Here’s the same 10 songs over, and over, and over again!
No amount of thumbs up/down-ing on the results appears to have any impact on the algorithm. Youtube music even gives this snarky little popup when I thumbs a song down “Okay, we’ll adjust your playlists” and then later plays THAT SAME FUCKING SONG again - not even a different version, but the same URL, which is still actively marked with a thumbs down.
Side question: is there a streaming service that isn’t shit for finding new metal? That actually takes into account the different types of metal?
Anywho, looking for recommendations for songs/albums. Bonus points if it has symphonic elements, but any sub-genre is golden, so long as the specimen in question has no vocals, or just -soft- vocals that don’t yank the spotlight away from the instrumentals.
Alright, class is wrapping up, I can start knocking these out. Gonna log my progress here, with a rating out of 10 and any comments (all 100% subjective to my personal taste - not looking to bash anyone here!):
Cloudkicker* - 7 - only complaint is some parts get overly repetitive
Animals as leaders* - 8 - ^same
Mestis - 8
Conquering Dystopia - 9 - Ooh, really like this one!
Polyphia - 7 - Great for ambience
Dysrhythmia - 6 - ^same, but liked Polyphia just a touch more
Scale The Summit - 9
Chon - 5 - Heavy on the higher pitches, and kinda repetitive - I’d have to be in a specific mood for this one.
Tigran Hamasyan* - 5 - Didn’t really care for this specific song, but thumbing through his others and am digging it.
Protest The Hero - 9 - Great energy, great variation!
The Ocean* - 9
Periphery - 8
Tesseract - 9
Porcupine Tree* - 7
Calligulas Horse* - 8
Leprous - 6 - Really liked the instrumentals; REALLY disliked the singer’s voice, lol
Tesseract - 7 - Vocals not terrible, but still really prefer the instrumental version.
Sleep Token* - 7
Cynic* - 7
Haken* - 8 - bro wtf did I just listen to rofl. Bonus point for weird shit!
Katatonia piano covers vol 1, 2 - 5 - Not the metally music I was looking for, but this is going on my studying playlist.
In Flames piano covers - 5 - Same^
Dark Tranquility Piano Covers - 5 - Same^
Between The Buried And Me - Colors - 6 - This one’s hit and miss for me. The hits hit hard though!
Clayman - 8 - Not a fan of the vocals, but there are instrumental versions of this that kick ass!
Whoracle - 8
Colony - 7
Mr Bungle’s California - 6 - Simultaneously not really my cup of tea, and also catchy as fuck.
Baroness Red, Blue, and Yellow; Green
Hit up my asterisks before the rest.
And Nikola Kvetkovic if death metal piano covers sounds dope. Because it is.
But seriously, The Ocean’s pelagial… Tesseract…
I’m gonna throw in Mr Bungle - California because it’s important, even though it metal at all. It informa a LOT of prog metal clean stuff.
Check out The Dear Hunter. Not metal at all but they fit into a lot of this in ways that’ll surprise you.
This niche is my passion 😊
These comments are going to take a lot of time to unpack, but dude I feel like a kid on christmas morning!
Will do! Not familiar with Dear Hunter (yet!) but “not metal” is far from a deal breaker - when I don’t have metal on, I’m usually listening to shit like this which I’ve taken to just calling “cinematic” cuz it sounds like something from a movie, but no idea what genre it would actually fall under; or some Lindsey Stirling if I’m shooting for something a little lighter.
But yeah, your list has been a 100% hit so far; I pulled up The Dear Hunter before I started typing this post, and the one song I’ve heard so far actually lines up perfectly with another music rabbit hole I’ve been poking around in lately with things like the Kongos. Would never have sought out that kind of music on my own, but a surgeon recently had our nurse play it in surgery a few days ago, and it was great lol (I’m a surgical tech, which is the rock-bottom-of-the-barrel in the OR, so we generally just listen to whatever the nurses or doctors want… which, at my hospital usually means country -_-).
My taste in music seems to be copy-paste of yours so far lol, so I’m down to try anything you care to throw at me, metal or not!
First, I am flattered. And will edit this post when sober/hungover. Music means a lot to me and not many seem to share my tastes!
Second, Please see past the growls for at least this album. Listen to
Between The Buried And Me - Colors
From start to finish.
Colors is, in my view, the best album recorded so far. To me. For my tastes.
And if the growls don’t turn you off from there, delve into early (growly) Opeth. Like BTBAM, it’s never all growls, just goes in and out.
Check out In Flames specifically the albums Clayman, Whoracle, and Colony.
Not metal… The Reign Of Kindo. And Mr Bungle’s California. The Mars Volta (anything pre 2010).
Check out HORSE the band. (Cutsman is a song about getting a haircut that rules)
Check out Genghis Tron (pre 2010).
Lmk what of my suggestions stands out and I can probs guide you to a few bands 😁
Edit: but seriously listen to colors. Now.
“I’ll just keep waiting…”
EDIT1: BARONESS.
No growls. Heavy as fuck. Red, Blue, and Yellow & Green are excellent. The rest are good too.
Also Mastodon. And Red Fang.
Edit 2: GOJIRA are angry Frenchmen upset about the climate. They rock fucking hard.
Edit 3: KIUAS.
This band never got the love they deserved. They refused to come to the US or sell records in the US. they were fucking awesome. Four excellent albums and then they fell apart. Asim Searah is a beast of a guitarist.
Edit 4: FALKENBACH.
German folk metal. Infrequent growls. A primal yell or two… mostly kind of hymnal chanting. Flutes and shit.
Wanted to check in since you’ve put so much work into your responses (you are straight up my hero!) - I’m a week out from wrapping up a class that’s kicking my ass, then I’ll actually get some free time again! I haven’t played many of these quite yet cuz I don’t want to just use my crappy car speakers on the way to or from work or have to listen to it in the background when I’m focusing mostly on something else.
The posts in this thread - especially yours - are going to get my full attention.
So, probably another week of radio silence, then I’ll be blowing up your inbox. :P
Started picking away at these - so far Conquering Dystopia is my favorite!
Also I’m an idiot and can’t remember which ones I clicked on prior to school turning up to 11 (accelerated Anatomy & Physiology II… that class was fucking insane, but now it’s dooooone!!! That was the last of my prereqs: nursing school up next!) so I’m just starting from the top. Gonna sort through these one post at a time, and add the links / a personal score to the OP.
Can’t overstate how much I appreciate all the links you’ve given!
Haha no problem homie! Hope you find something you really dig 😎
Keep me posted!
So what’s the deal with Chris Letchford? Scale the Summit is one of my favorites so far, but if he’s really a piece of shit I might knock that one off the list.