A regrettable request

I'm looking for some new music. That it's been asked a thousand time over is half of the regret, and that it isn't really new is the other. But I digress.

Two of my favourite artists are Regina Spektor and Muse. Both are quirky, soaring, fairly complex in their lyrics and composition, and make regular use of piano and violins, along with sax, guitar, percussion etc. in the case of the former.

While I explore the murky depths of shuffler.fm and other such suggestive sites for wider-ranging music, could anyone please suggest/recommend some artists that I might like on that basis? I mean, I have fairly wide-ranging tastes, but I am preferably looking for that kind of vocal heavy, classically-tinged music that doesn't suffer from the generic 'indie' style - interesting, 'alternative' music. That's not to say that it can't be 'indie' by classification, mind you, just that 90% of indie does sound exactly the same. p.s., I have used sites like last.fm and TasteKid, and they almost universally throw up poor imitations. I'm not looking for identically-themed artists, rather someone who I can genuinely get into and be compelled to actually buy from. :p

Any and all contributions to this selfish cause bear my advanced appreciation. Love will be shared. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indie_rock_artists

This may help somewhat. I'd just pick a name that sounds intresting and look them up on YouTube or MySpace. Sorry if I wasn't much help.

The problem here is that while I instantly spotted a few artists I already like and wouldn't consider 'indie' as such, there is so much shit within that indie subculture that I really need someone to sort through it for me. :p

I will doubtless invest some time in going through all of those artists at some point, so thank you very much for the referral, but it isn't time I currently have. I'm not asking anyone to go looking for me, of course, just to share any fitting favourites. :)

Dream Theater's never a bad choice. Start with Images and Words, and work your way towards their newer stuff, and you'll really like them. Anyone can get into them, really, it's just there's so much to choose from that if you pick an album from them you don't like, your opinion of their entire discography goes down.

My Recommendations

-Gob
-Blink 182 (Circa 1994-1997)
-Iron Maiden
-The Offspring (Circa 1989-1997)


My Friend's recommendations

-Tool
-A Perfect Circle
-Rammstein
-Buckethead
-Man o' war

While The Project Hate MCMXCIX fits a lot of your requirements in terms of instrumentation, it only applies to a few of their songs, as they are mainly a melodic death metal band. Give them the benefit of the doubt and just listen to this song. It does have a lot of instruments playing, but is not so vocal heavy.



This is one of their only (if not only) songs without harsh vocals. (I'll also say that their vocalist for harsh vocals is really good at it, imo)

Probably will not be interested in their entire discography, and this song is not as driving as many things I've heard from Muse, but I still think it's pretty nice.

I think it's fine to recommend you a band named Kalisia.
They have some old demos and one full length sci-fi concept album 'Cybion' that has been in the making for years.

It's basically one song of 70 minutes, divided by 4 segments that each has about 4-5 songs each. The music is mainly progressive death metal, but it can range from melodic death metal to symphonic progressive metal to electronic to jazz to Arabian and so on. In any case, it has something for everyone but it's up to you to find out if you can dig the main picture.

I'd say, give it a go. It's worth your time, if only for it originality and lyrics. I can send you scans of the booklet, if you're interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoOt9_CTCDU


Funny Fact:
For the album's concept, they actually developed an entire new language dubbed Kal, with its own grammar, semantic, calligraphy, and etymology. Kal results from the study of different living, dead or imaginary languages such as Sanskrit, Latin, English, Arabic, Greek, German, Japanese, and even Quenya and Tengwar.

The Doors.



Porcupine Tree



Dredg

A sprained wrist and general fatigue prevent me from specific comments, but thank you all for your suggestions. I'll work through them in due course and report back. :)

I olev Dredg. I'm going through that huge list a couple posts up because I'm always looking for new artists, also. Just a couple I found while going through it. Of all the songs/bands I haven't heard, Elle Milano is my favourite so far.

Elle Milano is nice.


The Flaming Lips is fantastic (I've heard of them before, have the discography somewhere).


This video is entertaining... Shitdisco


We Smoke Fags


Vampire Weekend


Starlight Mints


Edit:

Aberdeen City - In Combat