I love working with instrumental metal, typically prog or “djenty” stuff, in the background. Sometimes a bit of post-rock.
I was surprised how many of us there are. A lot of “professionals” I know listen to metal. Engineers, developers, IT folks. It will randomly come up and everyone will say something along the lines of “Oh, really, you too?”
Been listening to a lot of Their Dogs Were Astronauts recently. In the interest of sharing my personal favorites bands to work to, because I found a number of them from random mentions in forums:
- Their Dogs Were Astronauts -mostly instrumental.
- Wide Eyes - mostly instrumental.
- Caligula’s Horse - instrumental only tracks available.
- Polyphia - mostly instrumental.
- Protest The Hero - instrumental only tracks available.
- TesseracT - instrumental only tracks available.
- Apocalyptica - started covering Metallica as cello quartet instrumentals, now has a drummer and a number of original songs, often with guest vocalists.
- Collapse Under The Empire - post rock, mostly instrumental.
- Parhelia - post rock, mostly instrumental.
- Opeth - occasional instrumental tracks, started as death metal, evolved into more prog metal. Huge fan of most of their work in general.
Edit: I’m stuck at work with my PC being worked on so here are some more random artists whose music I appreciate:
- Anup Sastry - very djenty, mostly instrumental, some guest vocals occasionally.
- Scoredatura - djenty, mostly instrumental.
- Rishloo - psychedelic prog rock? not instrumental.
- HAKEN - instrumental only tracks available.
- Brass Against - brass and other classical instruments. They cover Rage Against The Machine as well as other random songs and make occasional mashups of them. Not instrumental.
- Pomegranate Tiger - prog metal.
- Modern Day Babylon - djenty, instrumental.
Have another: Animals as Leaders
Tosin is the greatest guitarist of the millenial generation.
Also his co-guitarist Javier has an excellent project as Mestís.
Another great band!
Plini as well as The Omnific!
I know Plini, will check out The Omnific!
Arch Echo
Behold…the Arctopus
Blotted Science
CHON
Cloudkicker
Covet
Haunted Shores
Intervals
Mestís
Also; I think mentioning Protest the Hero in the context of instrumental music does a HUGE disservice to Rody Walker’s vocal talents and lyrics. However as a guitar nerd and PtH fan I approve of their inclusion.
Behold the Arctopus mentioned!
SoyjacksPointing.jpgHehehe I knew that would draw you out. Where’s your riffs?
on my exteral drive, I’ve been busy :(
Totally valid, no rush. My guitar whispered to me a bit yesterday but its been a few weeks so I stuck to warming up rather than pushing for tempo.
I’ve mostly been working on Black Dahlia Murder’s Statutory Ape and Protest the Hero’s The Dissentience in terms of full songs. A few scattered PtH riffs off Palimpsest; intro to Sun of Nothing and the sweeps at the end of Selkies by BTBAM to round things out.
Haven’t written anything in years, just working on my chops.
Arch Echo
IntervalsI’m also a fan, I just didn’t want to go too nuts with my list because I needed to get to sleep! I’ll check out the rest.
Also; I think mentioning Protest the Hero in the context of instrumental music does a HUGE disservice to Rody Walker’s vocal talents and lyrics.
Agreed. I honestly mentioned PtH just to mention them and they do have deluxe albums with instrumental only versions which I really appreciate. I often can’t work to their music because my brain fills in their vocals for me, which is sometimes too distracting.
I’m also a huge fan of Opeth, Caligula’s Horse, and TesseracT with vocals but I haven’t ingrained every track’s lyrics in my brain like I have PtH.
CHON, Covet and Mestís are pretty laid back and so fucking excellent.
Cloudkicker has been around for a long ass time; early-mid 00’s on Myspace. One of the progenitors of the ‘bedroom guitarist’ project, although he toured with Intronaut as his backing band awhile back.
Arctopus and Blotted Science are fucking weird and I love them.
I often can’t work to their music because my brain fills in their vocals for me, which is sometimes too distracting.
Can relate 100%. I have audio processing oddities that make understanding lyrics difficult. With how many times I’ve listened to their albums (1500 times in a row for Palimpsest! I’ve got the Last.FM receipts for it, even) I know the lyrics mostly by heart. Instead of my brain being distracted trying to comprehend it gets distracted trying to sing along. Thus, instrumental for getting work done.
Also I can’t keep my boys Between the Buried and Me out of this post any longer. Suuuuuuuuch a fucking band. The new album rules, too!
Lol, my partner loves BTBAM. I was going to mention them as well.
A few more;
Alluvial
An Endless Sporadic (Guitar Hero fans know)
Scale the Summit (but only the first couple albums - Carving Desert Canyons specifically)
TRAM (Tosin Abasi plays jazz)
Teramobil (GREAT introduction to my favorite modern bassist, Dominic LaPointe)
Trioscapes (Between the Buried and Men’s bassist Dan plays jazz)
I feel seen lol
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Bonus points for cattle decapitation
I’m big on Opeth, Bodom (rest in power, Alexi), Dimmu, and Graveworm.
Technical death metal to amp up on the drive in, instrumental prog to get the work done, black metal to decompress on the way home.
For me:
Power metal or speed metal to start the day or complete a task really quickly
Death metal or epic heavy metal to push myself through tasks
Black metal to go through the day on a sustainable pace
Death-doom when I’m going through a lot of very small, context-shifting tasks for a long time and it’s driving me crazy
Atmospheric black metal or dungeon synth to focus on a complex problem, and also when I’m on latter part of the day and really tired.
Death-thrash to wake myself up when I’m sleepy.
Damn you! I am not an original thinker. :(
We’re all just different parts of the universe looking back at itself in different ways.
Please keep both hands on the steering wheel.
Then you get cancer, and can’t go to your 9-5 job. Which wasn’t paying for health insurance anyway. So fuck you and die.
What crawled up your ass?
*Gestures vaguely at the state of affairs of the world*
I’m just glad Oderus never found out how I live
Was loving Ne Obliviscaris on the way in this morning - such contrasts between dark and light!
They’re solid.
You should try Saor
Yo you get it
Everything sucks ass but if you can get paid good and get paid easy it can suck less.
Or work a shitty job for low pay, that’s the best
(/s if it wasn’t obvious)
Same, but with plundering and pillaging as lyrics.
Well I can’t say that being a graduate student is a stable job, but my research is absolutely fueled by technical death metal and sugar 🤘😈🤘
I do that, as well with sometimes riddim, hitech, psycore, hardcore, tekk…
🖤🤘🏻🎸🔊
better than a Scorpio
