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It probably wouldn't fit your thrash and death metal tastes, but sludge metal and doom metal are a lot less likely to have screaming or annoying vocals in them. I personally really don't like screaming even though I like metal, haha.
Otherwise, acoustic metal is where you want to land. It can be hard to find in my experience, though.
Just to be clear; are you wanting heavy metal music that's only instrumental? Or are you wanting heavy metal music where the vocalist doesn't sound like a small angry demon with a cold that just got karate chopped in the throat?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ por que no los dos?
For instrumental music with no vocals, try: Wide Eyes, Invent Animate (their instrumental versions), Modern Day Babylon, I Built the Sky. These aren't quite Death Metal, but they have really complex guitar and drum pieces.
For with vocals: Sea in the Sky, Ignea, Unleash The Archers, Corelia (also has instrumental version of their 1 album)
Unleash The Archers's version of Northwest Passage is a real banger.
Unleash the Archers are so good!
Elder
Dvne
Bossk
Keygen Church
Julie Christmas
Cult of Luna
Sgàile
Nightwish
Skiltron
Glorryhammer
Creeper
No real death in that list though - the vocals are part of the genre
For anyone looking at Keygen Church, also see their adjacent project, Master Boot Record for computer metal.
Not a metalhead, but I do enjoy Bongripper from time to time. Mostly instrumental stoner metal.
Check out a band called Pelican, especially their early stuff. It's not exactly what you're looking for but it might scratch that itch a little
You might like a lot of stuff by The Sword.
There are vocals but they are smooth and crisp rather than the xtreme death metal habit of trying to eat the mic.
So you just want instrumental? Check out Buckethead.
Ok, you got my upvote because I love some Buckethead but....
this is a deep well, you and I know it. Please give OP (and me) the "death metal without the screaming" album(s), if you know the titles. I know I have heard two at least that fit this bill exactly but haven't found them yet. I have been searching tonight but you start listening to Buckethead and there goes the time.
Hm, Animals as leaders? But it's not very thrashy.
Instrumental metal is what you'd search to get where you want to be. There's plenty of bands that don't have vocals at all, and even more that do instrumental tracks here and there.
Thing is, you'll run into a pretty broad range of styles under that heading since a lot of sub genres are defined by vocals and/or lyrical content. But instrumental is a sub genre of its own. It just gets defined by the lack of vocals rather than any distinct sound like the way thrash is going to have that "thrashy" vibe.
Edit: Animals as Leaders is pretty much the go to recommendation for instrumental metal. They run closer to prog than death, but so do most instrument only bands.
Maybe try symphonic metal. Bands like nightwish, within temptation maybe?
I am also not a fan of super growly vocals. There's a lot of stuff I love musically but the vocals put me right off. I'd listen to bands like Opeth and Beyond the Buried and Me more often if the growls weren't present.
If you're looking for metal with cleaner singing, I second the suggestions for Unleash the Archers and Nightwish. I can also recommend Blind Guardian, though the singer's voice is polarizing. One of my favorite metal singers is John Bush from Armored Saint. He also did a few albums with Anthrax in the 90s.
For instrumentals, I can't recommend much aside from guitar virtuosos like Steve Vai. Occasionally bands will release instrumental versions of their songs as B-sides, bonus discs, etc. Might be worth checking into.
I mostly listen to death-doom rather than strict death metal, but there's a fair bit of that out there. My two faves in the genre:
Draconian has clean female vocals alongside growled male.
Swallow the Sun has a wide range of vocal styles, but getting increasingly cleaner pretty much every album (along with clean female vocals on a lot of tracks).
Again, this is death-doom so a lot of the stuff will be a little slower-tempo than straight death.
Can't think of a super great example, but a collab between bad omens and poppy comes to mind. That's only one song though. It's called V.A.N https://tidal.com/track/340509886?u
Still has vocals but it isn't just metal screaming
Didn't know poppy was still around. She's interesting but I can't help but think that song would have been better without her.
Check out Night Verses
Try out Ashenspire, their album Hostile Architecture was my album of the year in 2022. They aren't death metal per se, but they are heavy as shit. Best description is prog metal jazz infusion with spoken word poetry.
There's a fair few that straddle the line between death growls and clean vocals. Check out Agalloch, Insomnium, Words of Farewell, and Before the Dawn. There's also of course Amon Amarth, still gorwly but usually clear enough to understand.
I'd start looking up "melodic death metal" that's a good place to start for what you're looking for.
I wonder if AI vocal removal would be able to handle that