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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.

Unnatural Ways is guitarist/vocalist Ava Mendoza's power trio with bassist Tim Dahl and drummer Sam Ospovat, formed in 2012 and drawing on noise rock, free jazz and metal for a raw, heavy, unpredictable sound built around Mendoza's angular, distorted guitar work. The band's second album, We Aliens, came out on John Zorn's Tzadik label in 2016, and Mendoza herself has a deep pedigree in Zorn's orbit, having played his 1984 'game piece' Cobra and recorded in his Arcana series. She's also a recurring guest on saxophonist Jon Irabagon's improv-noise 'I Don't Hear Nothin' But the Blues' series alongside guitarist Mick Barr.

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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).

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.

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A Paris-based avant-garde black metal collective built around composer Thibault Schwartz, integrating 'electro-jazz to black metal' across a large ensemble with violin, cello, clarinet, keyboards and dual male/female vocalists. Fans have described the sound as 'avant-garde black with circus metal and symphonic elements' — a baroque, maximalist take on black metal rather than a straight genre exercise. Dormant since its sole full-length, Introspection (2012).

Harmony Bay is a Czech avant-garde extreme metal band from Jihlava, formed in 1998, classified by Metal Archives under absurdist/nonsense/humorous lyrical themes. Their sound is built around live drums, guitar, and vocals from core members Petr "Bob" Pokorný and Petr "Gravyy" Stáva, with a synthesizer filling in the remaining instrumentation, resulting in a described fusion of metal with jazz and other genres. Best known locally for songs like "Žbluňk" and their album Bezcharakterní Šprým Idiomiasmatického Koníka, the project has stayed a deep-underground, self-released concern for over two decades.

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Oxbow were a San Francisco experimental/noise-rock band founded in 1988, built on the partnership of vocalist Eugene S. Robinson and multi-instrumentalist and composer Niko Wenner. Their music blends noise rock, avant-garde jazz, musique concrete and blues into caustic, paranoid soundscapes framed by Robinson's high, anguished voice. Their eighth and final album, Love's Holiday (2023), was their first for Ipecac Recordings; the band dissolved in 2024.

Ved Buens Ende..... is a Norwegian avant-garde black metal band, active 1993–1997 with later reunions, whose sole album Written in Waters (1995) is a touchstone of experimental black metal. It blends aggressive black-metal blasts and harsh vocals with quiet, jazz-influenced instrumental passages, atonality, dissonance, prominent bass and eerie clean crooning. Its members are central figures of the Norwegian avant-black scene, overlapping with Dødheimsgard, Ulver, Aura Noir and Virus.

Red Side Visible is a Cleveland/Akron, Ohio project built around multi-instrumentalist Tim Mirth, fusing odd-metered metal riffing with genuine free-jazz improvisation and alto saxophone. Press copy invokes Meshuggah, Mr. Bungle and Zappa as touchstones; the 2021 album 'A Break from Normality' collects material written and re-recorded across a decade since the project's 2010 debut 'Enter Entropy'.

První Hoře ('First Grief,' named after a Franz Kafka short story) is a Czech alternative/experimental rock band formed in 1998 in Jičín, fronted by theatrical stage personas. Won the 2008 Anděl Award (Czech national music award) in the Hard'n'Heavy category. Fundamentally an alt-rock/jazz-punk-chanson act rather than a metal band by genre identity, with only a later 'metal-tinted playing style'.