Need help getting into Opeth

That means you're looking for the entirety of the albums Damnation, Heritage, and Pale Communion. Very solid symph revival from Akerfeldt and Co, especially Communion.

The most pleasure comes from the hunting and finding, why would one want somebody else to do it for him, I ask myself...

I will say that I fear if I get into Opeth, I will start to like Death Metal. I have no idea why but I don't want my future ipod to have a bunch of death metal instead of prog

OK, I was much in your position when I started getting interested into Opeth, so I can tell you which are the non-growling songs of theirs I got to love. First, "Closure" from Damnation... but not the studio version... for me it would be the live version from "Lamentations", that's the one (though I only got Lamentations on CD format because I got it on a box-set, otherwise I think you can only get it on DVD). Actually, the whole Damnation is growl-less, in case you hadn't found that out already, but in general the album didn't click with me, except for that song... still, Lamentations feature the whole Damnation album, and once again I find it better on it's live versions. Then I love "Burden" and "Folklore". Now, the whole list of growl-less songs that I like from them:
- Soldier of Fortune (Deep Purple cover).
- Remember Tomorrow (Iron Maiden cover).
- Would? (also cover, I just forgot the band).
- Den Standiga Resan (Marie Fredrikson - from Roxette fame - cover).
- Epilogue.
- Face of Melinda.
- Harvest.
- Patterns in the Ivy.
- A Fair Judgement.
- Windowpane.
- Closure.
- Ending Credits.
- Atonement.
- Coil.
- Burden.
- Porcelain Heart.
- Hex Omega.

And then begins the three new growl-less albums which have several songs that I like too... so far I have listened to the last one few times, but it seems bound to be my favourite overall album from them. I think I heard the song "To Bid you Farewell" online and liked it, but couldn't buy it individually because it was too long, and I wouldn't want to buy the whole album. Oh yeah, and to end my list, the only Opeth song with growls that I have come to like... and love, and which actually has become my favourite song from them, is "The Drapery Falls", once again the Lamentations version.

I recommend Storm Corrosion, a great project of Steve Wilson and Akerfeldt (no growls here)

I really love "Still life" and "Blackwater Park", give them a chance, Akerfeldt its a great singer, Opeth never was a classic death metal act like Entombed, Dismember, grave, etc

Watershed might be my favorite Opeth album. I've found the heavier albums to be proggier than the last releases. More vocal and instrumental variation, time signature changes, interesting riffs and melodic passages. The new albums lack variety in a way...you are expecting something to happen, but it never happens I do like them, though.

I think Pale Communion is the best so far.

I'm not a fan of death metal as well, and from Opeth I love the albums Heritage and Pale Communion.

My advice would be to just try an digest the growls on Still life - that album shines in its non-growl moments which will give you a lift after enduring the onslaught. Think of the growl parts as the storm that you have to endure, if you will, and then let those brilliant acoustic clean moments bring you up. That's how it's supposed to work anyway. BWP is the standard, but I feel it's high moments are mostly in Death metal, whereas Still Lifes high moments are in those melancholia packed clean passages.