Azusa

Cave In is an American rock band formed in 1995 in Methuen, Massachusetts, whose 1998 debut Until Your Heart Stops established them in the metalcore scene before they shifted toward space rock with 2000's Jupiter. Founding vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky leads the band alongside guitarist/vocalist Adam McGrath and drummer John-Robert Conners. Bassist Caleb Scofield died in a car accident on March 28, 2018, after which Nate Newton of Converge joined on bass and backing vocals. Much of their core catalog was released through Hydra Head Records.

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Wetnurse was a Manhattan, New York City experimental metal/hardcore band active in the 2000s, releasing a self-titled album (2004) and Invisible City (2008, Seventh Rule Recordings, produced and mixed by Martin Bisi at BC Studios). Their sound fused early-hardcore urgency, AmRep-style noise-rock abrasion, death-metal heft, and classic-rock melodicism, with the band citing touchstones like Sonic Youth, Helmet, Voivod, Botch, Unsane, and Mr. Bungle. Drummer Curran Reynolds also later joined Today Is the Day; vocalist Gene Fowler has since passed away.

Extol is a Norwegian extreme metal band formed in 1993 in Bekkestua, celebrated for a restless fusion of technical and progressive death metal with black metal, thrash, and melodic, prog-rock sensibilities. Emerging from the Christian metal underground, they evolved sharply across records from the blackened death of Burial (1998) to the genre-defying, atmospheric The Blueprint Dives (2005) and the reunion-era self-titled album (2013). The core is built around the Espevoll cousins Peter and Christer alongside longtime drummer David Husvik and multi-instrumentalist Ole Børud. After their hiatus, members Christer Espevoll and David Husvik went on to co-found the international progressive metal band Azusa.

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The Deserts of Traun (stylized TRAUN) is an experimental, multi-genre metal project from Santa Barbara, California, founded and largely composed by drummer Dave Murray, formerly of Estradasphere. Its self-titled 2003 debut features Murray on numerous instruments alongside contributions from Estradasphere guitarist Jason Schimmel and others, blending metal, jazz, progressive rock and soundtrack styles. Murray later carried the project's polyrhythmic-metal sensibility into High Castle Teleorkestra.

XHOHX are a duo who describe their own music, in their own words, as "Chaotic and Organic No Wave, Poly-rhythmic and Atonal Music" — which is both accurate and about as much help as it sounds. Ramon Ribas Coca plays guitar and programs the drums, Oregolakatzor plays bass, and the result is heavy avant-rock built out of angular, disharmonic riffing that never repeats a bar it could complicate instead. Reviewers reach for Ruins, the Flying Luttenbachers and Univers Zero, and hear an industrial edge that comes from the rhythmic construction rather than from any electronics — the programmed drums are deliberately played straight, close enough to a human kit that the review noting them also notes you cannot really tell. Growled shouts surface between the instrumental passages. Two albums in eleven years, then a 2013 split with Ahleuchatistas recorded either side of the Atlantic, and not much since.

These Arms Are Snakes were a Seattle post-hardcore band active from 2002 to 2009, formed by former members of Botch and Kill Sadie. Blending punk urgency with math-rock complexity and synth textures, they released three studio albums on Jade Tree: Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home (2004), Easter (2006), and Tail Swallower and Dove (2008). After disbanding, bassist Brian Cook went on to Russian Circles and Sumac.

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Hunab Ku was a Seattle avant-garde metal act built around vocalist Mike Gilmore, guitarist Luke Jaeger (ex-Sleep Terror, joined 2008 replacing founding guitarist Dan Hagerty), bassist Matt Finn, and drummer Mark Villano. Their 2007 debut "The Gaze Inward" (Black Sheep Records) was reviewed as chaotic mathcore-indebted avant metal, drawing explicit critical comparisons to Dillinger Escape Plan, Cephalic Carnage, and Fantomas, with vocals ranging from screams to croons and moans. IMPORTANT DISAMBIGUATION: this is distinct from an unrelated Costa Rican black metal band of the same name (founded 2016 by Lord Eythraz) and a dark-ambient project — the Seattle act is the one matching the chart description and reviews cited here.

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Better Lovers is an American metalcore and chaotic hardcore band formed in 2023 in Buffalo, New York, uniting three former members of Every Time I Die (Jordan Buckley, Steve Micciche, Clayton Holyoak) with guitarist/producer Will Putney and vocalist Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan. The group released the EP God Made Me an Animal (2023) and its debut full-length Highly Irresponsible in October 2024 through SharpTone Records. Puciato fronted the band from its formation until the two parties amicably parted ways in February 2026.

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Giraffe Tongue Orchestra is an American rock/alternative-metal supergroup founded in 2012 by guitarist Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan, melding hard rock and progressive metal. Its lineup drew members from various established acts: Brent Hinds of Mastodon (guitar), William DuVall of Alice in Chains (vocals), Thomas Pridgen of The Mars Volta (drums), and bassist Pete Griffin (Dethklok, Zappa Plays Zappa). The band released its debut LP, Broken Lines, on September 23, 2016 via Party Smasher Records, reaching #85 on the Billboard 200.

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Gojira are a French metal band from Ondres, formed in 1996 as Godzilla and renamed Gojira in 2001. They fuse technical death metal, groove, progressive and post-metal into a percussive, pinch-harmonic-driven style, wrapped in lyrics about spirituality, philosophy and the environment. Their lineup of the Duplantier brothers with Christian Andreu and Jean-Michel Labadie has been unchanged since the rename; they became the first French band to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart and, in 2024, the first metal band to perform at an Olympic opening ceremony.

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