Abstrusa Unde

Nefarious Mash is the solo vehicle of Grenoble-based contemporary-classical composer Eddy Jaber, founded in late 2021 to bridge concert-hall composition and extreme metal. Debut LP In Memory of Your Hopes (2022, reissued 2024 on Wormholedeath) builds dense 'harmonic cathedrals' of dissonant black metal, threading in jazz-derived harmony, polyrhythmic surprises and theatrically flexible vocal delivery across nine long-form tracks.

In Front of the Mirrorplay in the dock

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Ashenspire is a Glasgow avant-garde/progressive black metal act formed in 2015, one of Scotland's most distinctive experimental metal bands. Their acclaimed 2022 album 'Hostile Architecture' (Code666) welds black-metal dissonance to avant-garde jazz, weaving saxophone, violin, Rhodes and prepared piano beneath vocalist Alasdair Dunn's Sprechstimme delivery. Lyrically it is a scathing, class-conscious critique of late capitalism, gentrification and urban design.

The Law of Asbestosplay in the dock

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Goatchrist is the solo vehicle of Leeds, UK musician Jacob Guilherme, formed in 2014, an explicitly occult project layering piano, orchestral textures, and jazz-inflected instrumental passages over an Orthodox black-metal core.

Arkheth is the long-running (2001-present) Australian project of Tyrone 'Tyraenos' Kostitch, now a one-man vehicle for symphonic-turned-experimental black metal after growing out of the Orange, NSW band Eternal Dark. Its 2018 high point, 12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew, folds saxophonist Glen Wholohan's honking, Contortions-indebted jazz lines into black-metal songwriting critics have dubbed 'an inverted Shining' -- black metal wading into jazz rather than the reverse. It is one of the more distinctive jazz/black-metal hybrids operating outside the Norwegian axis the label comparison implies.

Trismegistusplay in the dock

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Selcouth is a multinational avant-garde progressive metal collective founded in Oulu, Finland in 2013, drawing an ever-rotating cast of musicians from Finland, France, Spain, Russia, and Argentina — many also active in Stagnant Waters and Pryapisme. Their sole full-length, 'Heart Is The Star Of Chaos' (2017, I, Voidhanger Records), fuses jazz-fusion, prog, and metal with operatic multi-vocalist arrangements, drawing critical comparisons to Arcturus, Ved Buens Ende, Magma, and Weather Report.

Neon Scaffold is a Russian avant-garde/blackened metal project from Sergiyev Posad, Moscow Oblast, formed in 2018 by musicians drawn from Cage of Creation, Zatemno, and Licho. Their sound mixes jazz-inflected walking bass and saxophone with dissonant, folk-rooted black metal riffing; their 2025 album Noir (Pest Productions) followed a 2020 split, Konflikt, with Polish band Gruzja.

Bjeima is the Oslo-based solo vehicle of a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist who also records as Alfa Obscura and has played bass for Virus. NoHoN (2024) folds Japanese Noh-theater aesthetics into a dissonant, avant-garde black-metal base, self-tagged as art metal, avantgarde metal, black metal, ethnic, oriental, progressive metal and world music. It sits in the disharmonic lineage of Virus and Ved Buens Ende, pulled toward theater rather than straight aggression.

Iblis were a Kraków, Poland avant-garde black metal band active 2003-2013, known for their self-styled 'Nuklear Rock'n'Roll' and 2012 album Menthell. Bassist Traktor's jazz/funk/prog-inflected playing and guitarist Borsuk's swings between dense black/thrash riffing and spacious passages sat under frontman Zgred's theatrical, King Diamond-adjacent vocal shifts, sampled voices and persistent psychedelic effects.

Aenaon is a Greek avant-garde/progressive black metal band from Ioannina, formed in 2005 and signed to Agonia Records. Mastermind Achilleas C. (also of Varathron and Katavasia) leads the band with drummer Haris (Varathron), vocalist Astrous (Katavasia) and saxophonist Orestis Zyrinis, whose horn work gives their dark, noir-tinged black metal a distinctive jazz-inflected edge, as heard on 2022's 'Mnemosyne.'

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Blutmond is a Swiss avant-garde black metal band from Olten, active since the early 2000s, whose lineup includes saxophonist/guitarist Marc (also of Schammasch) alongside vocalist-guitarist John, vocalist-bassist Jerry, guitarist Simon and drummer Fabio. Beginning as a more straightforward black metal act (Endzeit, 2006), the band pivoted toward genre-blending 'urban mysticism' on Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days (2010) and The Revolution Is Dead! (2012, Code666), the latter folding saxophone, jazz and post-hardcore textures into black metal and drawing guest vocal spots from Anna Murphy (Eluveitie), Managarm (Varg), Markus Baltes (Autumnblaze) and Fredy Schnyder (Nucleus Torn).