Caged Bastard

One-man experimental black metal/noise/dark-ambient project from Arlington, Virginia, active since the mid-2000s, self-releasing a run of CDs before signing to Flingco Sound System for Oneiromantical War (2008) and Myrmidon (2009). The project layers dense, guitar-driven noise with buried vocals and programmed drums, veering between thrash-punk combustion and extended dark-ambient passages; reviewers note closing tracks that build from acoustic beginnings into twenty-minute noise excursions.

Locrian are an American experimental trio formed in late 2005 in Chicago by André Foisy and Terence Hannum, with drummer Steven Hess joining permanently in 2010. AllMusic characterizes their sound as an eclectic mixture of black metal, electronics, drone and noise rock, shot through with ambient and industrial textures and dystopic, apocalyptic imagery. In 2012 they made the collaborative album Bless Them That Curse You with Mamiffer, released on Profound Lore alongside Sige and Utech.

Ulveblod is the solo black metal project of Vitriol, formerly guitarist of Dutch black metal band Nihill, launched after the death of Nihill co-founder/vocalist Michiel Eikenaar. The debut full-length 'Omnia Mors Aequat' (Fantoom/Consouling Sounds, April 2020) trades conventional song structure for extended, corrosive drones: reverb-drenched shrieks and 'demonic, sizzling guitars' sit on a single idea for minutes at a stretch (one closing track runs 21 minutes) until, per one review, 'static morphs into beautiful pulses.' The result sits at the abrasive, noise-soaked edge of black metal, with doom-paced riffs breaking through the wall of distortion.

Khlyst is an American experimental drone/doom project formed in New York in 2006, built around guitarist James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD, Phantomsmasher), Norwegian vocalist Runhild Gammelsæter (Thorr's Hammer), and drummer Tim Wyskida (Khanate, Blind Idiot God). Their sole album, the dually-titled "Chaos Is My Name" / "Kaos er mitt navn," was released by Hydra Head Records in October 2006. Across eight Roman-numeral-titled pieces it alternates Gammelsæter's shrieked, free-form vocals with eerie ambient guitar and percussion soundscapes.

Emptiness are a Brussels avant-garde metal act formed in 1998 by bassist/vocalist Jérémie Bézier and guitarist Olivier J.L.W., both formerly of Enthroned (not in the E.M.M.A. atlas). Metal Archives tracks their evolution from Black/Death Metal in the early years toward Post-Metal/Post-Punk on later records, and their own bio describes the arc as moving 'through black and death metal, avant-garde experimentation, and claustrophobic minimalism.' Now signed to Season of Mist, their 2026 album Nowhere Speaks was tracked live in studio and deliberately loops back into the closing riff of 2014's Nothing But the Whole; the band also played Roadburn Redux 2021.

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Thralldom is the long-running studio project of Ryan Lipynsky (aka Killusion, also of Unearthly Trance) and Jared Turinsky (aka Jaldagar), formed on Long Island, NY in 1997. Deliberately never a live band, Thralldom trades in a blackened dark metal that folds in noise, drone, and industrial texture - 2006's 'A Shaman Steering the Vessel of Vastness' was reviewed for its 'lo-fi drone and dread' and 'doom-laden ambience,' built from what its label describes as 'an amalgam of half-tuned radio channels, machine noises, and shamanistic repetition.' The project returned in 2016 after a decade away with 'Time Will Bend Into Horror,' balancing that same experimentalism against tighter riff-craft.

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Berlin sibling duo — TMK and his sister MRK, active since 2008 — self-describing their sound as 'Massive Berlin Theatre': raw black metal (tremolo picking, blast beats, programmed drums) layered with synths, drones, occasional techno beats and clean female/male vocals plus spoken word modelled on Weimar-era cabaret, frequently likened to 'black metal meets The Threepenny Opera.' Key release: Reduzierter Allgemeinzustand (2021 remaster of a 2009 recording).

Dosanjos is a Sao Paulo black/death metal project built around raw riffing, claustrophobic dark-ambient drones, and dense noise textures, tagged by the band itself as 'schizometal.' Their lyrical world draws on cursed Brazilian poet Augusto dos Anjos, framing decomposition and existential horror through necro-poetic themes. The project is frequently likened to Abruptum, Gnaw Their Tongues, and Blut Aus Nord (comparisons only, not verified ties), and has steadily released full-lengths since 2014, most recently 2025's 'Funeral 23.'

James Plotkin is an American guitarist, bassist and producer who has been a fixture of extreme and experimental music since the late 1980s, moving from grindcore into drone metal, industrial, noise and dark ambient. He co-founded the extreme-doom band Khanate in 2000 with fellow OLD member Alan Dubin, and played guitar and guitar-synth in Mick Harris's project Scorn from 1994 to 1997. Beyond his own bands he is one of the scene's busiest producers and mastering engineers, his name appearing on countless works of underground extreme music.

Terra Tenebrosa were a masked, pseudonymous Swedish avant-garde/industrial black metal project from Stockholm (2009-2021), fronted by 'The Cuckoo' (Tomas Hallbom) alongside 'Hisperdal' and 'Hibernal.' Rising out of the ashes of cult post-hardcore band Breach, their three albums - The Tunnels (2011), The Purging (2013), and The Reverses (2016) on Debemur Morti Productions - combine black metal shrieks with industrial noise, sludge-doom heaviness, and dark-ambient drone. The Cuckoo's own history gives the band a direct, sourced tie to the atlas: he was a member of The Ocean (as 'The Ocean Collective,' 2004-2007) and appeared as one of the credited guest vocalists on The Ocean's 2006 album Aeolian.

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