Abhorrent Expanse

Kilter is a Brooklyn instrumental jazz-metal trio built around bassist/producer Laurent David, saxophonist Ed Rosenberg III, and Imperial Triumphant drummer Kenny Grohowski. Their records fuse free-jazz horn improvisation with sludge, doom, blast beats and dark ambient, most extremely on 2026's 'Ten Billion Years / Ten', built by recording ten-minute sketches and time-stretching them to forty. It sits at the NYC intersection of avant-jazz and extreme metal that also produced Imperial Triumphant, Secret Chiefs 3 and Titan to Tachyons, all sharing Grohowski behind the kit.

Ingurgitating Oblivion are a German death metal band (active as such since 2002, roots in 1997) built around founder-guitarist Florian Engelke. Their later work, especially Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light (2017) and Ontology of Nought (2024), moved into progressive, dissonant, avant-garde death metal, lacing Gorguts-style dissonance with jazz guitars, vibraphone, piano and musical saw, and drawing openly on Ligeti, Bartok and jazz. With Defeated Sanity's Lille Gruber on drums for the pivotal 2017 record, they became a fixture of the explorative death-metal underground.

Montreal trio blending sludge and death metal weight with jazz-inflected saxophone, ambient dronescapes, and psychedelic textures across long-form concept albums. Their 2022 record Hivemind unfolds as a continuous sci-fi narrative about first contact with an insectoid hivemind, drawing comparisons to early Mastodon, Dvne, Neurosis, and Oranssi Pazuzu. Formed from the ashes of Montreal band The Wild Hunt in December 2016, the band restructured as a three-piece in January 2021 with all members sharing vocal duties and reaching for non-traditional instrumentation.

Hivemind IIplay in the dock

BandcampSpotify

compare profiles →

Chaos Echœs formed in Gueberschwihr, Alsace, in 2011, months after the split of blackened death metal trio Bloody Sign, built around guitarist Kalevi Uibo and drummer Ilmar Uibo alongside bassist Stefan Thanneur. Metal Archives tags the project 'Experimental Death Metal/Drone/Jazz,' and reviewers describe albums like Transient and Mouvement as death metal stretched into psychedelic, free-jazz-inflected drone territory, drawing comparisons to John Zorn's Moonchild. Their 2018 release Sustain was a collaboration with free-jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. The band was active until 2019, releasing through Sentient Ruin and Nuclear War Now! Productions.

Black Mantraplay in the dock

SpotifyTidal

compare profiles →

Ehnahre is a Boston, Massachusetts experimental extreme metal ensemble formed in 2006 by former Kayo Dot members Ryan McGuire and John Carchia, fusing contemporary classical composition, aleatoric music, and doom/death metal extremity. The group avoids original lyrics, instead setting texts by modernist poets to dense, largely through-composed pieces built from extended technique and free improvisation.

Neural Indent is the solo, guitarless death/goregrind project of M.S. (Matt Stephens), who builds brutal death-metal vocals and grind structures entirely out of synths, keyboards, bass, and drum programming. Released mostly through Putrefactive Recordings, the project has been described as a spiritual sequel to fellow guitarless act Effluence, swapping riffs for synth textures that critics compare to Demilich filtered through Tangerine Dream, with occasional free-jazz/gorenoise detours. It sits at an unusual intersection of brutal death metal and synth-driven experimentalism rather than any conventional metal instrumentation.

Brainless Infant (FULL EP)play in the dock

Bandcamp

compare profiles →

Metallic Taste of Blood is an instrumental supergroup led by Italian guitarist/producer Eraldo Bernocchi and Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin, fusing metal, dub, avant-jazz and progressive rock on RareNoiseRecords. The 2012 self-titled debut featured avant-jazz pianist Jamie Saft (Electric Masada, New Zion Trio) and drummer Balazs Pandi; the 2015 follow-up Doctoring the Dead swapped in drummer Ted Parsons -- also known for Swans, Prong, Godflesh and Jesu -- alongside keyboardist Roy Powell. Reviewers describe the results as cinematic, industrial-tinged instrumental pieces that balance brutal riffage against ambient, discordant delicacy.

Vaults of Zin is a Denton, Texas quartet fusing Magma-style zeuhl rhythm-section interplay with sludgy, doom-weighted metal guitar and modular-synth freakouts. Largely instrumental and built from long-form, prog-length pieces, their two albums (self-titled 2011, Kadath 2016) sit at the psychedelic, heavy end of the American avant-prog underground, drawing comparisons to Kayo Dot and Maudlin of the Well.

Pan.Thy.Monium was a Swedish avant-garde death metal band active from 1990 to 1996, formed and led by Dan Swanö (as Day DiSyraah) with members drawn from his other project Edge of Sanity. Their signature was the baritone saxophone of Dag Swanö laid over murky, progressive death metal alongside organ and mystical synths, with vocals treated as a wordless instrument rather than carrying lyrics. Issued through Osmose Productions and later Relapse, their small discography is a touchstone for saxophone-driven experimental death metal.

Avant-garde metal sextet from Poznań, Poland, founded in 2019 by guitarist Marcin Tuliszkiewicz and drummer Krzysztof Kulis. Their self-titled debut (10 January 2025) fuses black/death metal harshness with dark jazz, doomy drone and trumpet (Magdalena Andrys), driven by dual vocals between clean singer Julita Dąbrowska and growler Michał Sosnowski.