I tried to get my brother into CoB because he'd greatly appreciate the instrumentation.. but he's one to not like metal vocals like that at all... it's a shame. He does say that the music is truly wonderful.
I'm cool with death metal vocals and growls.. But I personally don't care for black metal vocals..
Alexi's vocals in CoB though, go great with the music in my opinion.. It's fuckin kickass!!!
But yeah.. vocals are the one thing that keep metal non popular and only to the select few people in this world with good taste.
No no, the absence of incredibly gay poppy melodies (actually CoB has a lot of these well they aren't really like pop) is the first and foremost thing, then the growled vocals.