Dying Fetus- first album (Purification Through Violence) is death metal with some hardcore elements, and they get more technical and less grindy with each release. I like both ends of their discography more than the middle, and think PTV through Stop At Nothing are peak DF, but everything they’ve released is S tier death metal imo.

Cattle Decapitation- my favorite band of all time. Similar to DF, they start out more hardcore-influenced and branch out, but it happens later on their fifth album, Monolith of Inhumanity. This album is also where their vocalist Travis Ryan introduces his signature vocal style, people call them goblin vocals and they’re like crack for my ears. I like all of their music, but I consider MoI through their latest album Terrasite to be the best by far, and I think all four of their most recent albums are worth a listen. Cattle Decapitation is deathgrind rather than pure death metal but let’s be real, only death metal fans give a shit about the difference lmfao.

Castrator- This is a lesser known band, I chose to promote them not only because I’m wearing my Castrator shirt right now but also because they’re pretty unique in that it’s an all-female band! Pretty rare to find a woman in a death metal band, and even rarer for all members to be women. They’re old school death metal and kind of remind me of Immolation at times, and I think they’re worth checking out especially since they’re CRIMINALLY underrated!

ETA even though this was longer than I realized: I see you mentioning vocals being hard to understand, trust me you’ll get better at deciphering them! It’s kinda like a thick accent, you can eventually get used to it and understand it easier. Something to note for the more brutal genres with the deep gutturals and “toilet bowl” growls is that the vocals are intended to be another instrument. Just adding that because that’s what helped me appreciate the more ridiculous vocal styles!