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!)

Check out Graveyard and Soen and Opeth.

Leprous also comes to mind.

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

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)

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.

I like https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/ and https://keygenchurch.bandcamp.com/ !!

A lot of metal bands do instrumental releases

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR1qON1IN1zBN4eo7DFL4IYRwZeuKTvWP

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

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 Veil

Their 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

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?

I forget which one, but one of the Between the buried and me albums has an instrumental release. Honestly, all of their albums I recommend regardless because the musicianship is excellent.

Scale the summit is more along the lines of prog metal but purely instrumental (I think).

Protest the hero is prog metal that has a near minimal amount of death growl (still some).

Animals as leaders which has been mentioned by several people.

Exivious is decent, I’m like 90percent sure they’re instrumental.

There’s a Japanese band called té, which is way more prog rock but you might like that.

Death, despite being one of the progenitors of death metal, is less intense on the death metal growl vocals. To me, early death metal in general is a bit different sounding than modern death metal. Regardless, Death has a pure instrumental song called Voice of the soul which is part acoustic. It’s probably one of the most acoustically beautiful songs written in the genre.

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)

So you just want instrumental? Check out Buckethead.

Maybe try symphonic metal. Bands like nightwish, within temptation maybe?