It’s happened more times than I can count. I see a band that looks interesting on a streaming site. I hit play. The opening notes of noodly guitar or hooky riffage immediately capture my attention. Drums kick in, and my head starts to move. For a couple glorious, extended intro minutes I think I’ve found my new favorite band. Then the vocals start aaand I’m out. Nasal prog-rock vocals where I wanted a death growl; faux-demonic hisses where a scream belongs; emo screaming where literally anything would be better. Vocals are often an afterthought, especially in metal, and it often shows. Some people think they are required, but I prefer the honesty of a band that focuses on what they do well, and skips what they don’t care about. Especially when I’m working, I like instrumental music. But as long as the songwriting is there, I don’t care if the vocals aren’t.
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Cult of the Lost Cause
I’m not even embarrassed to admit that the first couple times I listened to Cult of the Lost Cause, I didn’t notice the absence of vocals. Contritions just doesn’t need them. Like a high protein vegetarian meal, the only people who protest are the ones who don’t partake. This album is completely satisfying.
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Dysrhythmia
It’s a nightmare to spell, but a delight to hear. Dysrhythmia have apparently been around since I was in high school, but I only recently heard of them. Two-thirds of this instrumental trio are associated with Gorguts, so it’s no surprise I love them. But Gorguts inspires the same creeping dread in me as the green fog in the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments did when I was a kid. Dysrhythmia’s Terminal Threshold, in contrast, feels playful and even a little mischievous. It’s fun.
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we.own.the.sky
I forgot to note how I stumbled on the mesmerizing video for “Heavy Heart” off the album Home by Athenian prog/post- band we.own.the.sky, but I certainly made a note that I liked it. In a previous life, I shared lab space with a post-doc whose research involved staring at nematodes in a petri dish through a microscope all damn day. At the time, I couldn’t imagine a more boring job. But maybe if it had come with a noodly, reverby guitar-led soundtrack like this, I would have felt differently.
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Forge
I didn’t even notice that The Weight of Us by Forge is instrumental the first time I heard it. This album is just about perfect instrumetal. It has all the pacing and dynamics you could want in a melodic death metal album, so you just don’t even notice the vocals are missing.
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