Good melodic metal? (no harsh vocals)
 

Since there's a clear leaning towards people liking the harsher end of the metal spectrum, I thought it would be interesting to know what people like that belongs to the opposite end of the spectrum.

So that means melodic metal and with no harsh vocal styles like growling or shrieking or such.

I imagine people know about a lot more than just Iron Maiden and other such usual suspects.

I'm hoping there will be suggestions for artist who as a whole fit the bill, rather than just the odd melodic excursion from artist who usually have their heads elsewhere.
Basically, I'm looking for non-extreme, harsh-vocal free metal bands to get into.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eBDUC4s3bY

^Posting this one just because I bumped into it a few days ago and it fits the bill.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDz_kDzDgF8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDvIMPrZ2is


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aSqL1q0Ec


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XDHkrgDxdQ

^These are just examples of what else it could be.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tMGZjf7Ka0

^This one is a bit of an odd fit. It's not very metal and there's technically a scream, but it's adjacent to metal and very, very melodic and nice and I love it <3

Crimson Glory were a pretty fantastic prog/power metal band from the 80s who sadly had two good albums, one bad album (or so I hear), and then they broke up. But that sophomore album, Transcendence, is on the short list for GOAT 80s power metal right up there with Warlord.



Virgin Steele on the other hand have about a million albums and after their first few hit-or-miss releases they got consistently amazing right around the beginning of the 90s. They do epic metal right alongside sick, heavy/power metal barnburners that never sound like yet another Helloween ripoff.

Ah hell, I'll throw my go-to metal (after Maiden) album at ya.

Throw Spellbound on there. It's not as satisfyingly raw but it's otherwise the better quality album.

Oh damn I forgot Wolf. They're a modern band who make the best NWOBHM this side of Iron Maiden and I'd rather listen to them than Maiden these days tbh. I guess you'd take Maiden's first two grimy albums, throw in a bunch of Mercyful Fate atmosphere and proto-thrash along with vocals also between Maiden and King Diamond, and give it modern-but-not-sterile production, and boom you got a band to blow away just about every trad metal band in history. If retro thrash had bands this good then maybe it wouldn't have been a lame fad.

Maiden

Pretty allright. I thought for a long time that I disliked this band, but it turns out that I just confused them with Powerwolf (a not very good band).

@ Mondo: he specifically said no Maiden. :rolleyes:
The remnants of Thin Lizzy, who now go by the name of Black Star Riders, are pretty cool.

I just don't know what so called melodic metal entails

quite a few metal bands have melodies in their songs

Melodic metal isn't extreme metal and it isn't the middle ground of much of thrash. Power metal, trad metal, symphonic metal, melodic death metal, and the lighter side of thrash are melodic metal. You know exactly what it is so stop being an elitist ***got pretending to not even know how to interact with the plebs.

but I don't

there's melody in every single Burzum song

Nah you're being an intentionally obtuse elitist. You know what melodic metal is. STFU

there's melody in all these songs

I would imagine it's metal that is melodic. So, 98% of it

I'm having trouble thinking of any legitimate metal that isn't melodic

Yes but you're full of **** is my point. Maybe you know this and are being a boring twat for the sake of bragging rights or maybe you're a twit who forgot how to have non-snobby opinions, but you're definitely one of the two.

ok

Bro I love you but you know full well you're preening for the sake of feeling like a "true" music fan. Melodic metal is not a hard concept to grasp and most importantly it is not something that was invented for this thread.

ok

Should be called harmonic metal tbh.

Sure, most metal has some form of melody. But nobody is humming a Mayhem tune while baking cookies.

"Harmonic metal". Sure, I see what you mean.

Gonna listen to all of these tracks for sure a bit later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGqUo7a7J_I
Warning - Watching From A Distance

I like the singer and the vibe of the album. Each song is good on it's own, but overall, I really think the album is too samey. The music is also generally a bit too meat and potatoes.
That second track is great playlist material, but I'm not feeling very sold on it as an album.

It's not bad at all, I just kind of want something more out of my metal than just a sombre atmosphere and dragging, low tuned doom metal power chords.


https://youtu.be/53eambMQbOQ
Crimson Glory - Lady of Winter

Sound was a bit tinny, but I think it's the video upload. 99% sure this would sound better on the actual album/on Spotify. Or even in another Youtube upload. Anyway, it's pretty good.
Good energy, cheesy but fun vocals. The solo section is so much my thing that it's ridiculous. Reminds me of Jake E. Lee's playing for Ozzy, so there's a big nostalgia factor coming with that sound.


https://youtu.be/RoLd3-AhyIk
Virgin Steele - The Burning of Rome

Top marks for the solo section, but otherwise, it didn't really grab me. Except there was a nice bit near the end as well.
Singer reminds me of Morgana Lefay for whatever reason.


https://youtu.be/D8IvKIN6I6M
Virgin Steele - Weeping of the Spirits

Throughout the intro section of this song, it's a dead ringer for Tony Martin era Black Sabbath. But... nah... this song just doesn't really make me feel anything. Next!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1o3huTAcGE
Tygers Of Pan Tang - Wild Cat[ALBUM]

Description refers to this band as NWOBHM legends, but it sounds like rock'n'roll. The music reminds me of Motörhead, actually. And like Lemmy always said they were, I consider Motörhead a rock'n'roll act.

Anyway, this album just makes me want to listen to Motörhead. I'm not finding any of this album terribly inspiring so far.

What I really, honestly want to know is: What does MB think about this band in general? Is this really great or is it just kind of there? I'm personally feeling the latter.

NOTE: Funny how the song that starts at around 12:45 sound like 2 Minutes to Midnight at first.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMTi-vbpnqI
Tygers Of Pan Tang - Gangland

Funny how the other album didn't have me making the connection, but this song straight up reminds me of Maiden's 2nd album "Killers".
The singer sounds like friggin' Paul Di'Anno!

Feeling this song way more right away. It's pretty fun. This album is well above "meh".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtVNAHTpDC8
Wolf - The Black Flame[ALBUM]

It's allright, but I'm gonna have to come clean: I find it too uniform to hold my attention as a full length. A couple songs from this album now and then would probably suit me fine, but
there's no way I'm listening to this whole thing in one sitting.

It's not bad at all. I see the appeal; and even feel it to a degree. I feel like the band lacks personality, especially musicall, but that's what I feel about a lot of these contemporary
Swedish "retro metal and hard rock" bands. Very polished and formulaic. Impeccable, but maybe too much so.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEWPbi3Jtm4
BLACK STAR RIDERS - Kingdom Of The Lost

This sounds more like Smokie than Thin Lizzy, to be honest. Was expecting a bit more. Ehh it's harmless enough, but I'm not in any way connecting to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bukSJnEL04
Dark Heart - Shadows of the Night

Sorry man, but apart from the really impressively stylish cover artwork, there wasn't anything about this that grabbed me on any level. Kinda having a hard time seeing what
the selling point is even supposed to be.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azYRwLlICqI
Lizzy Borden - Menace To Society[ALBUM]

Much more fun than the previous pick, if only because of the über cheesy vocals. Not that sold on it though. The songs just aren't that memorable. The guitarists can shred for sure, so that's something.

Same. Boring ****.

How about a little Pelican, a band so melodic they’re vocal free:

You know what they say about expectations...

Here's the melodic thrash album to break your mind about your hatred for thrash.



Also this.



And this.

I was actually going to rec that but he said no "shrieking" in the OP and I thought he'd be a big baby about it.

If he's gonna be that big of a baby then I'm going guerrilla and trolling the **** out of this thread.

Nah, it's fine. There's always going to be some things that kinda toe the line, no matter what rules you set.

I just wanted to try and make sure I wasn't bombarded with a load of post black metal or something.

Meh I just can't stand Jon Deverill's vocals. :rolleyes:

Here, MicShaz, viva Espana! Try the Spanish Iron Maiden

If you like that try Cain's Dinasty (no not misspelled lol)

and let's not forget Saratoga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWjN3YR0rYI
Pelican - Sirius

Found another upload because the other one won't play in my region.

Ok, so I gave this track about 5 listens just because I couldn't figure out what to think about it.
For some reason, I really liked the few moments where the instruments played in lower registers, but overall, I didn't get on board with this track.
I don't even have any particular reason why, so those 5 listens didn't help me much, I guess.
Maybe it's just the general sort of "indie-post rock" vibe that doesn't click with me. But even with that, I'd imagine I could find something I'd like better.
Maybe it was just the overall mood of the track that left me cold? I seriously don't know.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJz3cE1zTMQ
Artillery - By Inheritance[FULL ALBUM]

Ok, so I listened to a good 40 minutes of this album. Pretty cool, actually. I'm pretty sure I've been recommended it before by Batty, but that's fine. I apparently managed to forget about it anyway. There are some very big
highlights here for sure, but I wasn't paying equally much attention the whole way, so I don't know what my overall impression would have been if I had. The singer has a bit of that early Sanctuary wail going on, although not nearly as over the top (listen to Sanctuary's debut album if you don't know what I'm referring to).
Of course, being a thrash album, there's a lot of thrashing going on, but there are some real melodic high lights here and there.
Jump to 26:30 to hear the lead-up to a melodic lead guitar riff that sends chills down my spine! Far too brief though. They could have played that 8 times in a row and it would have been fine with me.

I'm kind of over basic thrash to be honest, but this album seems worth breaking that rule for. It's quite possibly a classic that should have been added to my colleciton before I gave up on the genre.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR2bMIAVlYo
Heathen - Hypnotized

I've tried to get into this band several times, especially way back when I thought that for sure thrash was the way to go for me.
This thing is fine, but I'm not really getting into it that much. I don't know why this band doesn't grab me, but they don't.

Didn't realize that the next pick was also Heathen. The same basically applies to this one. Didn't really feel it.
Not bad but... you know.

Still listening to some of the stuff above. Meanwhile, here's a track that I absolutely love, from a Kobra And The Lotus album from a number of years back:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPth4N8mDk

Doesn't melodic metal focus more on riffs and less on vocals? Or am I completely wrong? I know melodic death metal has a focus on riffs. The bands scream in most of their songs too. So I'm confused basically.

I can't think of a single metal band that isn't largely melodic tbh.