Metal with soft or no vocals?
Metal with soft or no vocals?
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!
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.
Check out Redneck Stomp by Obituary. Most of their songs have vocals, but this one doesn't.
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
I personally really like the band Long Distance Calling; it's all instrumental, no vocals. https://spotify.link/TU3yiTIZVCb
Instrumetal. I like this playlist on Spotify: https://spotify.link/DHO1sVLGUCb
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).
A few of my recs: Soen, Katatonia (Viva Emptiness and after), Riverside, Aryeon, Riverside, and Haken (Visions and after).
Tempel is good with few vocals.
I really love Unleash the Archers. Female lead vocals and power metal so if its easier for you to digest i would suggest them. Their music and videos are also awesome. Also sort of weird but I would suggest Tool because they have a lot of musical interludes that just hit so right.
The newest Genghis Tron record is all clean singing
- Candlemass
- Witchcraft
- Ghost
- Crowbar
- Danzig (just the first 2 and a couple of songs off of 3)
- Shit... just check out the classics like Judas Priest, Maiden, etc. Harsh vocals have only really been a thing for 40 years or so
You could always go the post rock route:
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- Russian Circles
- Pg.lost
- Wovenhand (the latter records are kind of heavy dark Americana)
Holy Serpent's "Endless" is one of my favorite albums. I think it's considered psychedelic doom?
I really like that the singing is softer, never screams. One of my favorite tracks: https://holyserpentband.bandcamp.com/track/daughter-of-the-light
Check Riverside and Earthside. Although they have similar sounding names they’re not related.
With Earthside leaning to mostly instrumental music, Riverside has clean vocals.
Enjoy!
It's not instrumental, but check out Daron Malakian. For example the song Guns are Loaded.
That's whole subgenre of metal. Power metal is the first, big one that you want to investigate.
Wretched - Exodus of Autonomy (Instrumental)
https://youtu.be/koLxbHejOII?feature=shared
Also, check out "They Rode On" by Watain. It's a slow jam, and without all the coarse vocals.
https://youtu.be/29nvdkIxIpY?feature=shared
Here's a link for Fleshgod Apocalypse's album "Veleno" instrumental version.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR1qON1IN1zBN4eo7DFL4IYRwZeuKTvWP&feature=shared
wow! thanks for all the new suggestions!
I use Amazon music HD, the paid one. It works for me. I don't really look for new metal that much. Usually my music choices are influenced by whatever concerts I'm going to see in the future. But the options are unlimited and I could play a different album forever on Amazon and not have to repeat them ever.
Death core bands, a few of them will release their albums with singing and full instrumentals. Shadow of intent, Lorna shore.
Body count just released an instrumental version of their newer album.
Oceans are Alaska
Wet Ass Plutonium - Nuclear Power Trip 👈 these aren't metal but something worth checking out on YouTube.
The basis for a lot of metal is classical music. I might suggest trying out different composers to scratch that itch.
Replying to myself:
Vivaldi - Four Seasons (specifically Summer) Bach - Little Fugue in G Minor (depending on which version)
I like Dark Moor
A lot of stoner and doom metal doesn't have much screaming, check out Weedian's bandcamp for compilations. You might find something you like.
Check Out Nuclear Power Trio. I don’t know who they are but they sound good and their song titles make me laugh.
Also as already mentioned, Animals as Leaders are excellent.