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Praxis is producer/bassist Bill Laswell's shape-shifting experimental project, built around a core trio of Laswell, guitarist Buckethead and drummer Brain (Bryan Mantia) that fuses funk, jazz, hip-hop, dub and heavy metal into highly improvised music. The 1992 debut Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) drew in P-Funk's Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins, while the harsher 1993/94 album Sacrifist added John Zorn on saxophone and ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris of Painkiller, plus vocalist Yamatsuka Eye. The result swings between noisy speed metal, dub and turntablist collage.

Yawn is an instrumental Oslo five-piece that treats extreme metal as a jumping-off point for collective free-jazz improvisation, splicing heavy-as-hell riffing and brutal breakdowns with synth-laced electronics and loose, improvised guitar soloing. Formed in 2019, their DIY-recorded 2022 debut 'Materialism' (Mindsweeper Records) drew acclaim from prog and jazz press alike for treating metal orthodoxy as raw material for real-time reinvention.

Anchor and Burden is a Berlin-based avant-progressive quartet self-described as an 'uncompromising progressive avant-garde doom-jazz post-metal band' built on collective instant composition. Two 8-string touch guitarists (Markus Reuter, Alexander Dowerk) trade cerebral, King Crimson-inflected lines over Bernhard Wostheinrich's synths and self-modulating electronics, while jazz drummer Asaf Sirkis drives the group with Indian- and jazz-derived polyrhythms. Their records veer between 'monolithic doom behemoths' and passages the band dismantles with sudden, sci-fi-tinged delicacy.

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God were a London experimental collective founded in 1987 around Kevin Martin (later of The Bug and Zonal), fusing ambient, dub, free jazz and noise rock into a saxophone-led 'jazzcore' that passed through the grindcore and industrial-metal scenes. The project ballooned to a nine-piece and drew admirers including Bill Laswell and John Zorn, the latter contributing directly. Justin Broadrick, whose Godflesh Martin had heard on John Peel's radio show, produced the group's early releases before joining as guitarist; the debut EP Breach Birth appeared on Situation Two in 1990, followed by the album Possession on Virgin in 1992.

Metallic Taste of Blood is an instrumental supergroup led by Italian guitarist/producer Eraldo Bernocchi and Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin, fusing metal, dub, avant-jazz and progressive rock on RareNoiseRecords. The 2012 self-titled debut featured avant-jazz pianist Jamie Saft (Electric Masada, New Zion Trio) and drummer Balazs Pandi; the 2015 follow-up Doctoring the Dead swapped in drummer Ted Parsons -- also known for Swans, Prong, Godflesh and Jesu -- alongside keyboardist Roy Powell. Reviewers describe the results as cinematic, industrial-tinged instrumental pieces that balance brutal riffage against ambient, discordant delicacy.

Tear Light From Matter is a Massachusetts-based instrumental act pairing saxophone with a standard metal rhythm section, self-tagged on Bandcamp as experimental/jazz metal/fusion/prog metal. Their debut, "In Statu Nascendi" (released 25 January 2019, recorded and mixed by Jerry MacDonald at Odd Fellows Recording), sits alongside a further release, "Fœtal Præyers", in a small but pointed discography. The saxophone-led interplay places them in the lineage of jazz-inflected heavy bands rather than straightforward metal songwriting.

Catatonic Effigy is a free-improv/avant-metal trio formed by guitarist Álvaro Domene, bassist/producer Colin Marston, and drummer Mike Caratti, convened at Marston's Menegroth studio in early 2019. Their debut 'Putrid Tendency' (Iluso Records, Nov. 2019) fuses free jazz, minimalism, and 20th-century composition.

Black Engine is a one-off 2007 Italian collaboration uniting three members of experimental jazzcore trio Zu - Luca T. Mai (baritone/alto sax), Massimo Pupillo (bass) and Jacopo Battaglia (drums) - with guitarist/producer Eraldo Bernocchi. Their sole album, 'Ku Klux Klowns' (Wallace Records, 2007), pushes Zu's usual free-jazz/noise-rock language into heavier, doom-drone-adjacent territory with Bernocchi's guitar riffing layered atop the horn-led chaos. The project effectively works as a heavier-guitar-driven Zu side outlet and presaged Bernocchi and Pupillo's later duo Obake.

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.

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Neuma emerged in 2001 from the ashes of Polish prog/noise-metal cult act Kobong, and by 2006's 'Weather' had built a sound around crushing, djent-like bass vamps under free-jazz saxophone improvisation. Reviewers compare its skronking, Colin Stetson-esque sax runs to a slow-motion 'jazz drone,' with fuzzy guitars splitting the difference between post-punk and post-hardcore. It reads as a sparser, stranger cousin to the metal/jazz-fusion lineage of bands like Estradasphere.

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