Instrumental Metal.

Always dug the sound, rarely the vocals (Of course exceptions being Black Sabbath, Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden etc.). So i did the next best thing, i began a long search for instrumental metal, and I've found quite a few songs that i like. But, being the lazy fucker that i am, I'm gonna stop searching, and ask the good folks of Giantbomb to throw some suggestions my way.

Instrumental metal, but other than that anything goes. So what are some good instrumental metal songs you know?

You'd probably like Tool. It's not instrumental, but most of the songs have clear vocals.

Dream Theater has a few good instrumental songs. Then there's the Instrumedley.

Lots of the early Apocalyptica stuff is instrumental, you should check them out.

Blotted Science is an intrumental metal band:

Hhhmmm... I'll throw up a couple.

This one is through the game Sacred 2, but it's a real band.

There's other ones that I'm sure you already know about also. Like Apocolyptica. I think they also did a tribute album to Metallica. Not sure.

Scale the Summit

Liquid Tension Experiment

Animals as Leaders

Mastodon also released an instrumental version of their Crack the Skye album.

Racer X has a couple instrumental tracks, and they kick major ass. Especially Y.R.O.

Pelican. Also, Tomydeepestego.

This isn't especially heavy, and the rest of the album isn't instrumental, but I highly recommend still checking it out. It's probably my favourite album of the year.

Other than that, for purely instrumental bands, I suggest checking out Chimp Spanner, Cloudkicker, Keith Merrow, Koyaanisqatsy and Scale the Summit.

@TheDudeOfGaming: Check out Animals as Leaders and Pelican

John Petrucci of Dream Theater, my favorite Instrumetal song

Check out russian circles, pelican

Both 100% instrumental

@theoldhouse: @guiseppe: @Cslaw: Thanks, but i already know about those, and I'd classify tool as "other". :P

I'm already in love with this thread

Red Sparrows are awesome too

fear factory

pain

Gifts From Enola.

a friend of mine plays in a band called "omega massif" from germany. they're pretty huge right now in germany and get lots of great reviews. (this is from geisterstadt, they have a new record called karpartia)

also check: isis, mare, (both with little vocals use, but so great.) russian circles, monkey3, triosk, rawke, shora, year of no light, maserati, pelican, some of the asva stuff, switchblade

also from a friend of mine. (radare) they mix bohren and the club of gore style jazz elements with slow instrumental metal pieces. great stuff.

the mighty EARTH.

Pretty much any band on Tee Pee Records like Earthless:

Or Witch:

@MannyMAR said:

Racer X has a couple instrumental tracks, and they kick major ass. Especially Y.R.O.

YES. Racer X are awesome, and Paul Gilbert is my personal god.

There are loads of shredders who are mostly instrumental. They veer away from metal though so you have to search through their catalogue. It's always hyper speed electric guitar with distortion solo's though. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci etc.

If you like things like iron maiden, then you would quite like Symphony X, Time Requiem, Edguy, Stratovarius, Majestic, Sonata Arctica. Some of them are a little hard to find, or were when I got the albums anyway, but they are amazing. I loved those bands so much for such a long time, and I still do somewhat, although my taste has broadened in the last 5 years or so.

@groin said:

Blotted Science is an intrumental metal band:

@BulletproofMonk said:

Scale the Summit

Liquid Tension Experiment

Animals as Leaders

These and Cloud Kicker are the only bands you should bother listening OP. Except for Liquid Tension.

i guess it would depend on what kind of instrumental metal youre looking for. i listen to progressive metal bands that are more technical, and most of the bands i see here arent really what i had in mind. but here are some instrumentals from a band i like that you can listen to and see if you enjoy. be warned though, the rest of their music is not reeally instrumental at all

I think Jeff Loomis' "Zero Order Phase" is one of the best instrumentals to come out in a while. It's more of a showcase of his guitar skills but still. Miles of Machines, Jato Unit and Shouting Fire at a Funeral are prolly my favorites on the album.

Liquid Tension Experiment it's awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edqH0ofRQrM

Why stop at instrumental metal? (commonly reffered to as post-metal) and check out post-rock bands like Mogwai, Sigur Ros and Explosions in the Sky too?

They have their share of earth shatteringly heavy songs too.

Isis, Pelican and Russian Circles were mentioned earlier. As a big fan of instrumental rock and metal I can give those recommendations my full endorsement. Mastodon was also mentioned earlier and most of their albums are worth the price of admission because I actually like their vocal style, but their albums all have an instrumental song included somewhere in it's listing. The instrumental Crack the Skye is amazing as well. The production on that record is mind blowing.

EDIT:

Oh! How could I forget Baroness and The Sword? They have their share of instrumental songs as well! A lot of their songs are long and sprawling and the vocals aren't like every other metal band's vocals. Give them a look too.

@SMTDante89 said:

Dream Theater has a few good instrumental songs. Then there's the Instrumedley.

And that ends the time I'm gonna give to this thread. Best answer was given in about two comments.

@Slayeric:

mogwai are playing my town right now, but too expensive for my taste. (30€) (almost 40$). saw then in france 2 years ago and it was so so. like the new album nonetheless. and yeah, i could name a TON of other incredible instrumental bands, but they wouldn't fit into the "metal" genre. more like post-rock, post-hardcore.

@innacces14: Rude... :/

@mortal_sb: depends on the venue I guess. I would gladly have paid that amount of money if it was one of the places around here. Their new album caught me off guard. I really like the vaguely electronica direction it took.

Well, thanks to everyone who posted, this has been a great help.

@groin: I'm not a metal person but Blotted Science are awesome.

@BulletproofMonk said:

Scale the Summit

Liquid Tension Experiment

Animals as Leaders

Glad to see I'm not the only one with good taste, unfortunately GB wont let me embed right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0y65VZK84

3:30 ish for the solo.

@TheDudeOfGaming: Let us know what you think of the suggestions after checking a few of them out, man.

Joe Satriani's 'The Extremist' is a brilliant heavy rock instrumental album.

@Slayeric: It's a suggestion thread duder, you pop in, you give your favorites you walk out, never to return. Just kidding, i did check out pretty much every band/suggestion. A lot of the music i already knew, Russian Circles, Red Sparrows, Mastodon, Animals as leaders, Dream Theater, Trivium, Tool etc. The bands that I'll look into further, Apocalyptica, Cloudkicker, Mogwai (which is really awesome dude, thanks). Regardless of what i thought of the suggested music i truly appreciate everyone who responded.

@PeasantAbuse said:

@mortal_sb: Pretty cool that you know a guy in Omega Massif, they're awesome.

i know the whole band. =) but andi especially is such a cool guy. know him since pre-omega massif times. too bad they live like 250 miles from here, so i don't really see them very often. check out planks. ralph, their singer, is one of my best pals and they just signed with southern lord.

Somebody already mentioned Blotted Science. But Ron Jarzombek has some other, quite different sounding instrumental metal bands you may like.
 
Gordian Knot is pretty mellow but still interesting.  

Jakob from New Zealand. I believe they're touring with TooL at the moment:

It's not exactly Metal. It is King Crimson. King Crimson is a genre unto itself.

Pulled purely from my ipod

Tyrant Of Death

Tre Watson

Drewsif Stalin

Returning We Hear The Larks

Long Distance Calling

Scale The Summit

God Is An Astronaut

Explosions In The Sky

Christian Muenzner

Pual Wardingham

Dysrhythmia

Levi/Westler

Keith Merrow

Cloudkicker

Dan Dankmeyer

Shardborne

Odyssey

Blotted Science

N O V A

Robots Pulling Levers

Amogh Symphony

Soul Cycle

Judgement Day

Industries Of The Blind

Epocy Crysis

Fathoms

Animals As Leaders

Friend For A Foe (there's an instrumental version of their album on bandcamp)

I'll Eat Your Face

Russian Circles

Wiht

Karl Sanders (of Nile, his stuff isn't really metal but the Saurian albums are awesome)

Awake In Sleep

Shades Of Devastation

Telepathy

Small edit: If you can find the instrumental versions of Tesseract's One, Darkest Hour's The Human Romance, and Periphery's self titled that have been going around all of them are incredibly worth it.

A note: A lot of these are available on the group's respective bandcamp pages. Just put the bands name and then .bandcamp.com and it'll take you there. Some of the ones that are names are projects of solo guitarists. Some of their works have vocals but the bulk of everything they do is instrumental. This should hopefully keep you set for a little while.

Anything that Boris makes that doesn't have any vocal parts.

@DemiGodRaven: Damn dude, i gotta say, you have a weird ass taste in music. But i like it, I've checked out some of the artists that you suggested, it'll take a bit to check out the rest.

@pw2566ch: Blind Guardian did a song for Sacred 2? Never knew that!

Also, In Waves is definitely not an instrumental.

@Nightriff said:

John Petrucci of Dream Theater, my favorite Instrumetal song

Woah didn't know Petrucci had solo stuff, thanks for sharing!

Enjoy.

oke so lots of my favorites have already been given.

This guy also has a band 'Disperse' that you might like, not instrumental though.

There are a lot of country and blue grass influences in his stuff but it's pretty much mostly metal.

These guy's.. well it's just classic Final fantasy music with more of a metal edge.

This band is not instrumental at all but i just wanted to throw this on here cause i think it's great.

These guy probably have been named.. but if no one did.. shame on you guy's

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Also, Periphery has a version out there with all instrumental tracks of their debut. Might liek that too, cause for most people it's the vocals that turn them off.

I'd also like to second animales as leaders, gordian knot, blotted science and cloudkicker. and some more suggestions that i forgot already.

Also, Marco sfogli and Planet x are great bit not strictly metal.

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EDIT!

A lot of stuff of what demigodraven said.

I seem to have repeated a bunch of his stuff and forgotten a few things he though of, hehe.