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
No vocals? I got you fam:
I guess Scale The Summit, but fuuuuck Chris Letchford.
Optional instrumental versions? Got you fam:
Clean vocals? Got you fam:
All Opeth after 2010 (😢)
Edit: added links and asterisks. Asterisk means you should really look into them if you’re not familiar 😁
I came to give recommendations and you listed most of the ones I know and more. Thanks for the list!
Check out the Liquid Tension Experiment too.
Damn, that’s a great list. Most of what I’d recommend is in there, here’s a few more:
- Anup Sastry - everything’s instrumental except the most recent album, which has vocals, with an instrumental version too
- Blotted Science - other Ron Jarzombek stuff tends to be instrumental as well, like Spastic Ink
- Master Boot Record - everything’s instrumental, he coerces old hardware into making cool music
- Pomegranate Tiger - all instrumental
I guess Scale The Summit, but fuuuuck Chris Letchford.
Oh no, I love Scale the Summit. What did he do?
He handled this really unprofessionally. He basically wasn’t paying his band mates. His band members posted scathing things on social media. If I recall, one member jokes about the “Chris Letchford Can’t Afford To Pay Me Starter Kit” with photos of his brand new house, truck, etc. Chris was an egoist about it all.
I’ve seen them live twice. One time they were headlining, and the opening act stoooooole the show (reign of kindo). Chris, in between songs, kept nagging the audio and light crew, saying things like “can we get some better lights up here I feel like I’m playing in my living room…” no, Chris, it feels like your living room because that’s the energy your brought to stage.
So yeah, I don’t support the guy, but his music is good.
Awesome list. My current listens, that I don’t think I’ve seen listed yet. Some might not be metal enough for everyone, but I love metal and the above bands and I also listen to these artists:
Mostly Instrumental
Long Distance Calling (more Post-Rock than Metal)
Apocalyptica (Cello Quartet that started by covering Metallica, newer albums have originals and guest vocals)
Clean Vocals
Instrumental Versions of Tracks are Available
@[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected], and at this rate probably a few more just in the time it’ll take to type this.
Holy shit, all.
This thread has been up for like an hour, and I’ve got probably several days worth of back-to-back songs to check out - a whoooole bunch of which is stuff I haven’t seen before.
I did NOT expect this kind of response. Y’all are my hero.
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!
Check out The Dear Hunter. Not metal at all but they fit into a lot of this in ways that’ll surprise you.
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.
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.
Try Russian Circles or Pelican.
There’s a lot of djent - a subgenre of progressive metal - that has no vocals. Check out…
- Arch Echo
- Scale the Summit
- I Built the Sky
- Intervals
Sounds like you’d probably enjoy some prog metal or maybe just prog rock in general? Those bands don’t typically have a lot of screamy vocals. I use Amazon Music. It seems to do a pretty decent job of suggesting new bands based on my playlists
Caligula’s horse
Also, not really my jam, but there’s a bunch of folk metal and like Viking metal that has clean vocals and symphonic elements
Oh and Dream Theater obviously
The only instrumental acts I can think of that haven’t been mentioned are Paul Ortiz (Chimp Spanner), David Maxim Micic, Wide Eyes, and The Helix Nebula.
You could also try Walking Across Jupiter, Oh Hiroshima, and If These Trees Could Talk, but I can’t remember if they have (guest) vocals or not.
While they do have vocals you could also try Wheel, their album Resident Human is really good.
Good luck in your search!
I wonder if you would like Jeff Loomis’ solo work? Sadly hasn’t released anything in the last 10 years. His most popular song is Miles of Machines but my personal favorite is Jato Unit.
The Contortionist might be up your alley. Language is more metal, Clairvoyant less so.
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Maybe look into electric moon, the sword, mogwai, sleep, witchcraft,? I kinda lean towards softer, melodic doom metal but those are just some suggestions off the top of my head
Windhand would be a good addition to your list
The Sword are great.
I believe the band pelican, is all music no lyrics.
1 song from solution .45 (lethean tears) is also without screaming etc
Theres a decent site… metal-archives, that has a ton of band info, including band members, similar bands etc
Check out Redneck Stomp by Obituary. Most of their songs have vocals, but this one doesn’t.
I like to call Leah “The Enya of Metal”. If you want almost pure instrumental metal there’s Amogh Symphony (or Wang Wen if you want something metal-adjacent that’s mostly instrumental).
Instrumetal. I like this playlist on Spotify: https://spotify.link/DHO1sVLGUCb
