Bad Acid Trip

Japanese noisecore/noisegrind duo from Kanagawa Prefecture, active since 1994, consisting of Hisao (guitar, vocals) and Ryohei/Kikuchi Ryohei (drums). Final Exit built a cult reputation across dozens of splits and tapes for melding chaotic grind blasts with an earnest love of surf rock, disco, pop and classic rock ('Kiss and Iron Maiden'), often as tongue-in-cheek genre parody. Still active past their 30th anniversary, they premiered a new album at Obscene Extreme festival in 2024 and released a picture-disc LP tribute to Japan's 'Young Guy' (Wakadaisho) film series in 2020.

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Maïsman is a Grenoble collective built around a fictional vegetable-superhero mythology, pitting its titular hero against the villain 'Méchant Man' (voiced on record by Lofofora's Reuno) across two concept albums, Le Plus Grand des Super-Héros (2006) and Le Retour de Méchant Man (2010), blending funk, new wave, synth-pop, hardcore and alternative metal. Live, the project stages a full theatrical production — characters, costumes and sets, a Star Wars/Disney pastiche — making the show, as much as the genre-shifting studio sound, its defining trait.

Formed in Austin in 1987 and relocated to Chicago in 1989, The Jesus Lizard perfected a blueprint of noise-rock menace: David Wm. Sims and Mac McNeilly's lurching, hydraulic rhythm section, Duane Denison's wiry precision guitar, and David Yow howling from deep in the mix like, in one critic's words, 'a kidnap victim trying to howl through the duct tape over his mouth.' Their Steve Albini-recorded Touch and Go albums Goat (1991) and Liar (1992) stand among the most significant noise rock records of the era, and a split single with Nirvana briefly brushed them against the mainstream. After disbanding in 1999 and reuniting for tours from 2009 onward, they released Rack in 2024, their first album in 26 years.

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Winny Puhh are an Estonian punk/metal band formed in 1993 in Põlva, known for a berserk visual spectacle: wolfman masks, spandex wrestling gear, and a custom rigged drum kit that spins two drummers through the air simultaneously. Their 2013 Eesti Laul performance went viral and led to an invitation to perform at Rick Owens' Paris menswear show.

Dead Cross is a Southern California crossover-thrash/hardcore supergroup formed in late 2015, uniting drummer Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Fantômas, Mr. Bungle), bassist Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox), and guitarist Michael Crain (Retox). The Locust's Gabe Serbian was the original vocalist but left after the debut was recorded; Mike Patton replaced him in December 2016, rewriting the vocals over the existing instrumentals. The band has released two albums via Patton's Ipecac Recordings — the self-titled debut (2017) and II (2022) — delivering short, violent blasts of thrash and hardcore punk.

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Clondementto is a genre-scrambling rock/metal project from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, formed in late 2002. Their 2009 album Carnival Complexia is promoted on Bandcamp as a 'free improvisational ride' melding free jazz, black metal, noise rock and lounge into one vision, wrapped in a carnival/commedia-dell'arte concept (track titles reference Polichinella and funhouses). The wider band catalog leans on eclectic Mexican alt-metal blending jazz, funk, bossa nova and rock, but Carnival Complexia specifically is the outlier record where the metal and free-jazz elements are most explicit.

7000 Dying Rats are a long-running Chicago 'comedy grind' collective, active in various lineups since 1992, built around joke song titles and a deliberately rotating cast of 30-plus contributors rather than a fixed band. Their records (Fanning the Flames of Fire, The Sound of No Hands Clapping, Season in Hell) mix grindcore/noise aggression with tasteless, cult-favorite humor. The most notable alumnus is drummer/vocalist Weasel Walter, who passed through the Rats between stints leading The Flying Luttenbachers and later drumming for Behold... The Arctopus.

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Made Out of Babies were a Brooklyn noise-rock/sludge quartet active 2004-2012, fronted by the extraordinary Julie Christmas, whose lurching between whisper and shriek gave the band its volatile character. They released Trophy (2005) and The Ruiner (2008), with the Steve Albini-recorded Coward (2006) widely rated their high point; early records came out on Neurosis's Neurot Recordings. The lineup drew from the wider New York heavy underground, with guitarist Brendan Tobin (Red Sparowes), bassist Eric Cooper, and Christmas also fronting Battle of Mice.

Split Cranium is a trans-Atlantic crust/d-beat/hardcore punk project pairing American musician Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac, Mamiffer) with Finnish musician Jussi Lehtisalo (Circle). Lehtisalo and Turner conceived the band during Circle's 2009 European tour with Isis, with Lehtisalo writing riffs and Turner adding vocals, guitar, and noise. Their self-titled debut arrived on Hydra Head Records on March 20, 2012, followed by the more experimental "I'm the Devil and I'm OK" on Ipecac Recordings on May 25, 2018. Turner has described the dynamic as "Jussi loves melody and I love dissonance and noise."

Dog Fashion Disco is an American avant-garde metal band formed in Rockville, Maryland in 1995, built around vocalist Todd Smith and long-serving drummer John Ensminger. Frequently likened to Mr. Bungle, they splice heavy metal with jazz, circus and film-noir cabaret, 1960s psychedelia, ska and funk into whiplash, concept-driven records. A saxophone/woodwind chair (Matt Rippetoe) anchors the jazz side of the lineup, and their 2001 major-label album Anarchists of Good Taste features a guest turn from System of a Down's Serj Tankian.