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Psychopathology Orchestra was a one-man Dijon, France project helmed by a musician known as Timmy (also of the black metal duo Astaarth), releasing a single 2003 album that pairs stop-start death/black/grind riffing with a heavy layer of synths and industrial-style programming. Mr. Bungle-indebted horn stabs, cartoonish pitch-bent keyboard tones, and a thematic fixation on psychiatric insanity give the record a theatrical, unhinged character within an otherwise French death-metal frame.

If Nothing Is (stylized/credited as INI on Metal Archives) is a Trondheim, Norway avant-garde metal project fronted by vocalist Boeddelen, guitarists Håkon Grytvik and Mats Stenberg, drummer Vegard Myrdal Berg, and bassist/main composer Lars Emil Måløy — also the bassist of Dødheimsgard. Emerging from the ashes of an earlier band called Revocation around 2008, the group self-released its sprawling, ten-track debut "If Nothing Is" digitally in 2015, later remixed, remastered and issued physically by Dark Essence Records in 2021 with a guest synth/sample contribution from Dødheimsgard's Vicotnik. The record moves through thrash, speed, death and black metal within long-form, technically demanding compositions compared to early Atheist and Cynic.

Strapping Young Lad is Devin Townsend's industrial/thrash/death metal band, active 1994–2007 with a stable lineup of Townsend, guitarist Jed Simon, bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan (also of Dark Angel, Death, Testament). Built on polyrhythmic riffing and blast beats, the band is best known for a hyper-dense, multitracked "wall of sound" production style critics compared to Phil Spector and Frank Zappa, drawing on the harsh industrial/noise lineage of Foetus and White Noise. City (1997) was the critical breakthrough; The New Black (2006) leaned back into the band's tongue-in-cheek black humor before their 2007 disbandment.

Light Dweller is the solo dissonant death/black metal project of Cameron Boesch, based in Phoenix, Arizona, who writes, performs, records, mixes and masters every release himself. Since the 2018 EP 'Nullity of Light,' the project has moved from Immolation/Incantation-indebted death metal through Ulcerate/Krallice-style angularity, culminating in 2025's 'The Subjugate' (released via Avantgarde Music's death-metal imprint Unorthodox Emanations), which reviewers describe as adding a 'glitchy, percussive pulse' to its bleak, blackened atmosphere. Boesch also regularly turns up alongside other one-person underground acts on split releases, most recently 2025's 'Illusory Dissolvents.'

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Azure Emote is an avant-garde death metal project founded in New York in 2003 by illustrator/vocalist Mike Hrubovcak (Monstrosity, Vile) as an outlet 'to express personal negativity without the genre limitations often present within Extreme Metal.' Built around a core band with guitarist Ryan Moll, bassist Kelly Conlon, drummer Mike Heller and violinist Pete Johansen, the project layers in shifting rosters of guest musicians — female vocalists, saxophone, harmonica, keyboards — to give nearly every song its own distinct color. Releases including The Gravity of Impermanence (2013) and The Third Perspective (2020) have come out on Selfmadegod Records.

Sarmat is a New York technical death metal quintet whose 2023 debut Determined to Strike (I, Voidhanger Records) pairs Gorguts-style dissonance with jazz-fusion horn and piano interludes, drawing comparisons to a hybrid of Imperial Triumphant and Weather Report. The record is framed as the first chapter of a three-part interstellar sci-fi concept cycle, and was mastered by Colin Marston at his Menegroth studio. Bassist/pianist guest Steve Blanco doubles as the touring bassist of Imperial Triumphant.

Eigenstate Zero is the solo project of Stockholm metal veteran Christian Ludvigsson, launched in 2018 to fuse progressive death metal with Frank Zappa-style jazz-fusion excess. Across Sensory Deception, Machinery of Night, The Malthusian and Shape of God Thought of Sun, Ludvigsson stacks odd time signatures and weird electronic/synth textures over a death-metal chassis, filling 'passages of eclectic weirdness' between the heavy sections.

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Endolith are an extreme progressive metal three-piece from Tromso, Norway, formed 2010 and signed to local label Rob Mules Records. Their concept album 'Chicxulub - The Fossil Record' (2019) refracts the dinosaur-extinction narrative through Meshuggah/Strapping Young Lad-style djent grooves, Gojira-esque crush, Devin Townsend-scale orchestral synth walls, black-metal (Emperor-tinged) tremolo bursts, and electronic programming, arriving at what one reviewer called 'a truly unforgettable trip.'

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A prog-extreme-metal supergroup uniting Jason McMaster (Watchtower, Dangerous Toys) on vocals, Davide Tiso (Ephel Duath, Botanist) on guitar, and Hannes Grossmann (ex-Necrophagist, Alkaloid) on drums, Howling Sycamore melts thrash, black metal, and old-school prog-metal singing into dense, riff-heavy epics. Their two albums draw a deep guest bench — Marty Friedman and Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia) on lead guitar, Bruce Lamont on baritone sax — that pulls the sound toward technical/progressive metal more than cross-genre experimentalism. Jamie King of Between the Buried and Me mixed and mastered the sophomore record, Seven Pathways to Annihilation.

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Voidstar Nocturnal is a progressive blackened death metal trio from Heredia, Costa Rica, formed in 2023 by musicians from Corpse Garden, Deiphago and Advent of Bedlank-adjacent scenes, evolving directly out of Corpse Garden. Guitarist Fabian Salas, bassist Kevin Moran, and drummer/synth player Erick Mejía Arguedas, joined by guest vocalist Roy Zumbado Cognuchz (TŴR, Advent of Bedlam), recorded the debut LP "Nexus Teleport Fracture" (Godz ov War Productions, 2026) live over three days at Colin Marston's Menegroth Studios in New York with no edits, triggers, or overdubs. Critics describe a surreal, psychedelic fusion of dissonant death/black metal with electro-industrial synths, post-punk/darkwave atmosphere, and a cosmic sci-fi/occult concept.

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