I don't know what would be a proper simile other than 'gentle', maybe 'mild' or 'tame'. But essentially I'm looking for the opposite of 'brutal' while still being essentially death metal.

I know that people have different cut-offs for what is considered death metal and what isn't, so it will be interesting to see where that lands for everybody.

If I understood you correctly then I've always considered Bolt Thrower to be 'easy listening' death metal.

I would say Death. They're the progenitors of the genre, but their stuff got more and more accessible getting closer to Sound of Perseverance. Production was clean and the songwriting is really strong, my love of Symbolic is well documented.

death, cynic, and atheist are all decent contenders, though how primarily death metal you want will of course come in to play

on a totally not-what-you-meant tangent, i'll throw in lykathea aflame - they're solidly in the brutal end of the spectrum, but the term gentle definitely also applies to them more so than any other death metal band i can think of (mild or tame, definitely not)

Even plenty of other death metal albums up to 1988 make Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy sound gentle in comparison.

Came here for this exactly. The vocals aren't too harsh, the sound in general isn't very chaotic (barring the first couple of records), and the riffs and drum grooves are pretty melodic and straight forward. I know plenty of people who aren't really into death metal who still enjoy Bolt Thrower.

Tales from the Thousand Lakes, even your granny might like this one.
They weren't really "pure" death metal on this album, but it was released just 2 years after the sepulchural meat & potatoes finndeath of The Karelian Isthmus (which your granny probably would NOT like), and it's not melodeath in the sense of riding the gothenburg wave, so I'd say it counts.

Absorbed. Arguably it's more like prog metal with whisper growls, but generally it gets the death metal tag and it's as brutal as a cool summer breeze.

I've always found Jungle Rot fairly accessible death metal. A lot of songs in 4/4 that are just big arena rock chug riffs. Having said that, I absolutely love that band.

I'd say Howls of Ebb. Amazing band, but their raw, airy guitar tone makes me feel like I'm listening to King Gizzard. Maybe "gentle" isn't the right word, but sections like this almost downgrade from metal into rock music because of how light and jammy they feel.

oh here's another contender: chapel of disease - that "airy guitar tone" description above made me think of their last absolutely brilliant album

Obituary.

Mostly mid-paced songs with relatively simplistic riffs and more conventional song structuring.

I cannot immediately recall a single instance where this band gets anywhere near the intensity of a blast beat. Their relatively few fast moments are Celtic Frost fast (if that makes sense) at their most extreme.

I extend that to the first two Six Feet Under albums, which are essentially Obituary albums, riff-wise.

This topic made me chuckle as someone being around in the scene since the beginning of death metal. It never started as 'gentle' but quite the opposite.

But anyway, Armoured Angel's "Stigmartyr" EP from 1992 might fit the bill.
Current day bands I'd say "Chants from Purgatory" by Graceless is quite a gentle, melodic death metal album devoid of any fury or brutality.

You're a little vague in your request, but basically, reading you, I thought of three ways to interpret "gentle" death metal. So that's just my take, but here goes:

First thing that popped to my mind (and reading other people's comments, it seems to be a very logical answer) is the more progressive and/or fusion-y side of death metal that would do the trick. Death (Human, Individual Thought Patterns), Atheist, Cynic,

Second way is maybe to go for stuff that's less saturated, not as fast-paced and technical as a lot of brutal and technical death metal. Someone already mentionned Bolt Thrower. I'd say everything in that realm also works. Stuff like Memoriam, Asphyx, Benediction.

Third would be to go to melodic death metal. But some will argue (myself included) that melodic death metal is basically entirely it's own thing now, and not really death metal. So it's up to you if melodeath fits what you're looking for. Anything from the early days of In Flames and Dark Tranquility fits in there, in my opinion. The newest Majesties album is also quite gentle compared to other more aggressive stuff, even within the realm of melodeath.

Can I say Be'lakor? Although a MDM band, to my ears they carry none of that saccharine DNA yet still sound so smooth as to qualify for this topic.

Great shout out. Cabals of molder is one of the most memorable death metal songs i've ever heard. Too bad they split up

I'm actually gonna second Armoured Angel too. Pretty nice death metal in vain of stuff like Bolt Thrower, Arghoslent, and Ares Kingdom.

I kinda think God Macabre: The Winterlong fits the bill. Pretty melodic (and "passive" in a way) but still great death metal.




Also, this little interlude, 'Lamentation,' is beautiful, yet still so metal

The most gentle form of death metal is melodic death metal. Try listening to Carcass, specially the albums from Heartwork to today. Is one of my favorite bands. Other good band of that genre but with a more modern feel is The Black Dahlia Murder.

Mourning Sign - Alienor

If it's gentle it ain't death metal. Just kidding, just kidding... I don't know, Opeth?

The first two albums by The Chasm come to mind. Pretty much the closest thing to easy listening death metal I can think of.

Autumn Leaves “As Night Conquers Day” is one of my favourite melodic death metal albums of all time and it just goes down so smooth while truly not sacrificing any hallmarks of death metal.

https://youtu.be/XlvtW5JC6xk

Some of the middle and later Edge of Sanity albums are more chill compared to most death metal, especially when more of the prog aspects become the focus compared to the death metal elements.

Try the EP from the early 90s Finnish band Depravity, titled "Silence of the Centuries". Highly melodic, yet in a mournful way.

Gorement's album "the Ending Quest" also fits in that realm, though I'm not particularly fond of the record personally.

Lykathea Aflame

As for albums I enjoy:

Lunatic Gods - Sitting By The Fire

Folksy sounding death metal with keyboards ripping through it all. Sounds a bit upbeat to me but I dug it.

Alchemist - Jar Of Kingdom

Christian Death Metal with all sorts of wanky guitar antics going on.

Lykathea Aflame

Honestly can’t stand this album. Shitty drumming, overly upbeat guitars but definitely would classify it as gentle

lol wut?

Also, it's extremely weird for me seeing all these posts saying that some very technical, dissonant, or avant garde type bands are "gentle". Howls of Ebb doesn't sound "gentle", it sounds like getting lost within a surrealist Escher style painting.

Interestingly enough, two bands and their respective demos which came to mind first seem influenced by two far more well-known groups who were already brought up in previous posts:

Cerebrum from Finland and their highly enjoyable "Grief" demo, and Altered Vision from Italy with their excellent 2 songs on the split release with Putrefy. I so wish both of these recordings had been followed by entire albums afterwards...

Apart from those, I bet a major amount of the "least aggressive sounding" (which may be what the OP was intending to say) death metal belongs to the progressive/jazzy corner of the genre's realm, e.g. Contrarian.

The Black Dahlia Murder isn't gentle though, hahaha

Cynic for sure. The robotic vocals and melodic atmospheres etc. They were truly on the periphery of death metal if not completely outside of it.

Gotta go with Tiamat, especially something like Clouds.

Interesting question and I think I may have some better choices here than most of the other replies

Early Septic Flesh, the tempo of other songs on this album gets higher but this is probably the best example, probably because many of the melodies derive from Western Classical music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MnNDqeAmGM

Ancient from SWEDEN, early melodic death metal with a warm fuzzy demo sound and not much heaviness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulSotGrNGBk

Musica Eternal, hardly death metal really, its more like atmospheric rock with death metal vocals and chugs, still I enjoy this relaxing piece of extreme metal by aesthetic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzKag6_AWMo

Lier in Wait, this one wouldn't be so gentle sounding if it weren't for the faint demo production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnfp8_IODrY

This was my first thought upon reading the thread. I bought the album when it first came out, and I remember thinking "my nan could listen to this".

Good album though.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "gentle" is. You seem to fall in the "gentle" = "easy listening" camp, which doesn't line up with my definition. To me the production is the biggest factor, and Howls of Ebb are very, very light on distortion with a very airy and expensive master. They are surreal, yes, but not very heavy or aggressive. It's like wandering into a perfume store.

But other people in this thread are using "gentle" to describe anything that's compositionally simple, which misses the entire point to me. Like, Death and Obituary I can see being gentle (mostly because of the production, not necessarily because they have simple riffs and song structures), but Bolt Thrower? Jungle Rot? These bands both sound like a cinder block to the fucking face, nothing about them is "gentle" in the way that I'd use the word.

i agree with most of what you're saying, though i'm kinda with wily on howls of ebb - they have rather wide dynamics, where you can find those perfume stores, but two minutes later you're walking into a lovecraftian horror scene. it's not really brutal in the aggressive sense either, but more oppressing, unsettling, disturbing, or other not-quite-what-i'm-after adjectives from the thesaurus - i guess it's kind of "gentle" how they're slowly dissolving the skin off your face, but it's not "mild" or "tame", as per the op

When you mention the synonyms in the OP, I agree that I wouldn't call HoB "tame" (I think "mild" still applies to a lesser extent), but "tame" seems much more explicitly like a negative term - to me that word almost feels like a synonym for "boring". I can think of bands that sound extremely heavy but are "tame" in that they clone some other band and their songwriting is unoriginal and unambitious. So I guess I was focusing strictly on bands with a very light sound, and I think HoB, even at their most atmospherically intense, have a very light and almost rubbery distortion. If they sounded crunchier I wouldn't even consider placing them in this category.

Gentle death metal is an oxymoron anyway, so I don't know why you'd assume your definition of "gentle" to be any better then ours.

Nobody argued that Bolt Thrower were not heavy, just that they might be easier to listen to then say Cryptopsy or Nile. Which they are. If someone was just starting to explore death metal and they wanted something to ease in, I'd recommend Bolt Thrower in a heartbeat. It's relatively simple, grounded, repetitive, it has a lot of grooves, hooks and catchy riffs.

Well, because none of those attributes you described about Bolt Thrower strike me as inherently "gentle" or "mild". I agree that Bolt Thrower are a very entry-level band by virtue of their songwriting. But to me, "easy to listen to" is not nearly the same thing as "gentle" - sometimes it's the exact opposite!

• Pantera is "relatively simple, grounded, repetitive, it has a lot of grooves, hooks and catchy riffs" - but calling them "more gentle" than Meshuggah because of this is relatively nonsensical.
• "Brostep" dubstep like Excision or Getter is very intense, distorted, essentially the opposite of "gentle" while still being extremely catchy and mainstream-accessible.
• Musique concrète is often extremely gentle (it can just be a collage of sounds against a minimalist background) while being extremely complex and not catchy at all.
• Jazz can also be gentle while being incredibly complex and hard to follow or listen to.
• This ukulele cover of "Frantic Disembowelment" by Cannibal Corpse is exactly as technical as the original song, but feels infinitely more gentle even though the song structure is not changed.

With these examples in mind, I just can't see the catchiness of a band having much at all to do with how [gentle/mild/tame/etc.] the band is.

As far as an answer to the thread that I can back, I lean more toward the people who listed Tales From a Thousand Lakes and Clouds. I want to add early Septic Flesh to that group. Again, they're no where near straightforward death metal, but the majority of their songs are super mellow and atmospheric in not necessarily a dark way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffOEGUSDX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2QZR81lrE8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoB-RIUOP5Y