Coinmonster
Coinmonster is a Pennsylvania/Ohio-border progressive-metal outfit (New Castle, PA, formed 1990) built around guitarist-vocalist Jon Reider's fusion chops — self-described 'avant-garde jazzcore' that threads Holdsworth/Herring-style jazz-rock guitar through off-kilter time signatures, with detours into banjo-and-brushes Americana on tracks like 'Wake Up Tilton.' Largely a private-press/regional act (The Schematic, 2000; Tilton Johnson, 2002) rather than a scene band, it's an outlier RYM-tagged avant-garde-metal entry with no documented ties to the wider atlas.
SCORE PROFILE
Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.
WHY THOSE SCORES
- Jazzy 6 — Described as 'avant-garde jazzcore' by the guitarist himself, with explicit influence from jazz-fusion guitarists Allan Holdsworth and Jimmy Herring (supercorrupter.wordpress.com interview with Jon Reider).
- Technical 6 — Style combines prog-rock guitar with 'off-kilter time changes and complex arrangements' (WebSearch synthesis of RYM/AllMusic coverage; corroborated by interview).
- Folk 3 — Track 'Wake Up Tilton' is built on 'playful piano, a banjo and brushes' with an old-movie, Americana-cinematic feel (WebSearch synthesis of Tilton Johnson track-by-track coverage).
MEMBERS
- Jon Reiderguitar, vocals
- Rick Stonerbass, keyboards
- David Galaziadrums
FURTHER LISTENING
Nearest score profiles in the atlas.
- UnaffiliatedEI 8Burning GhostsJazzyTechnical
Los Angeles metal-jazz quartet fronted by trumpeter Dan Rosenboom and guitarist Jake Vossler, pairing lyrical, Miles-Davis-lineage trumpet against Vossler's distorted, noise-inflected guitar over double bass and drums. Their 2017 debut Reclamation (Tzadik) was tracked in 72 hours as a politically charged 'jazz protest record,' moving between free improvisation, heavy thrash riffing, and balladic passages.
- Tool-verseEI 11Volto!JazzyTechnical
Volto! is an American jazz-fusion jam band based in Los Angeles, best known as the side project of Tool drummer Danny Carey. Formed in the early 2000s from improvised sessions with guitarist John Ziegler and bassist Lance Morrison at a San Fernando Valley jazz club, the group spent nearly a decade as a live-only act before releasing its debut album Incitare (2013) on Fantasy Records. Their heady, genre-spinning instrumental sound bridges King Crimson, Liquid Tension Experiment, and 1970s fusion, foregrounding the improvisation that Carey has cited as his main motivation for the project.
- Dissonant tech-deathEI 11The Pitts Minnemann ProjectTechnicalJazzy
The Pitts Minnemann Project is an instrumental progressive-rock/jazz-fusion collaboration between keyboardist Jimmy Pitts (Scholomance) and drummer Marco Minnemann, joined by rotating guest virtuosi on guitar, bass, saxophone, and violin. They released two albums, '2 L 8 2 B Normal' (2014) and 'The Psychic Planetarium' (2016), both blending heavy fusion with progressive-metal complexity.
- UnaffiliatedEI 8Cartel CarnageJazzyTechnical
Cartel Carnage is a French quintet of jazz-scene musicians (guitar, bass, trumpet, tenor sax, drums) fusing free jazz, heavy metal, pop and progressive rock into what reviewers called a 'musical UFO.' Their sound and stated influences — Naked City, Fantomas, Mr. Bungle, Zorn, Ornette Coleman, alongside Meshuggah and Slayer — place them squarely in genre-collision RIO/avant-prog territory, though no sourced personnel or label ties connect them to the existing atlas. Their sole full-length, Incorporated, was released in 2012 on Great Winds/Musea Records.
- UnaffiliatedEI 8Red Side VisibleJazzyTechnical
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'.
- Dissonant tech-deathEI 9Felix MartinTechnicalJazzy
Venezuelan-born instrumental guitarist known for playing two self-designed 14- and 16-string guitars simultaneously, tapping both necks to emulate two guitarists at once. Signed to Prosthetic Records, his 2013 debut The Scenic Album is a trio recording with bassist Nathan Navarro and drummer Marco Minnemann, fusing progressive-metal technicality with jazz-fusion vocabulary and a tapping technique inspired by Venezuelan traditional ensemble music.
- UnaffiliatedEI 10ToumaïJazzyTechnical
Toumaï is a French 'psyché-fonk-metal' fusion band founded in 2006 near Aix-en-Provence/Marseille, built around vocalist Antoine Hude-Flaven and a rotating rhythm section. Their two albums, Sapiens Demens (2013) and Tempus Fugit (2023), fuse groove/progressive metal riffing with funk, jazz and math-metal detours, citing Primus, Mr. Bungle, Tool and Gojira as touchstones; they shared stages with Gojira and Psykup through the 2010s. A groove-funk-prog outfit at the edge of avant-metal rather than a deeply experimental one, with no documented ties into the atlas.
- ZornEI 12Jon IrabagonJazzyTechnical
Jon Irabagon is a Filipino-American jazz saxophonist and composer, founder of Irabbagast Records and winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, whose work runs 'from postbop to free improvisation, avant country to doom metal.' He performed on John Zorn's Bagatelles Vol. 13 (Tzadik, 2023) as half of the Speed-Irabagon Quartet with Chris Speed, Christian McBride and Ches Smith, with Zorn himself guesting on alto sax.
- UnaffiliatedEI 10Sanity TheoristTechnicalJazzyFolk
Sanity Theorist is a DIY solo avant-garde/progressive death metal project based in Clermont, Florida, releasing free (donation-based) albums via Bandcamp since at least 2016, including Time Erosion, Escher Architecture, Ferrofluid Quicksand, and Existent Suffering. The composer's own bio describes progressive/death/funk metal roots layered with tribal Taiko drums, '70s prog rock, eastern folk, psychedelia, lead bass, jazz fusion, and neoclassical influences over extreme-metal rhythms. The same artist is also credited as a member of the multi-instrumentalist duo Refusal Knot.
- ZornEI 11AhleuchatistasTechnicalJazzy
Ahleuchatistas are an American instrumental avant-prog / math rock group formed in Asheville, North Carolina, in November 2002, mixing jazz, progressive rock, noise, African and Chinese traditional music into block-form, thru-composed and improvised pieces. Their name fuses Charlie Parker's 'Ah-Leu-Cha' with the Zapatistas. Their 2004 album The Same and the Other was reissued on John Zorn's Tzadik in 2008 after Zorn took interest, and the current lineup pairs founder Shane Parish with bassist Trevor Dunn.