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Kurushimi (苦しみ, 'suffering') is a Sydney improv collective founded in 2015 by bassist Andrew Mortensen, built around Zorn/Zappa-style conduction: two conductors flash hand signals mid-performance to steer a five-to-six-piece horn-and-rhythm ensemble through sudden lurches between free jazz, doom, freegrind, dub and noise. Reviewers reach for John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Bill Laswell, Morbid Angel and Bohren & Der Club of Gore in the same breath to describe it, and the band's own 'doom jazz' tag undersells how far the improvisations range. It's one of the purest Naked City-lineage conduction projects to turn up on the avant-garde-metal chart, even without any documented direct tie to Zorn himself.

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Cleric is a Philadelphia avant-metal band formed in 2003, fusing grindcore, doom, mathcore and free-jazz-informed improvisation into dense, extended compositions built on Matt Hollenberg's mathy, technical guitar work. The band sits squarely in John Zorn's orbit: they're signed to Web of Mimicry (Trey Spruance's label), released Chokhma as part of Zorn's Tzadik box set The Book Beri'ah, and had Zorn himself guest on alto saxophone on Retrocausal's closer 'Grey Lodge' — with Mick Barr also guesting on guitar on the same record. Hollenberg additionally plays guitar in Secret Chiefs 3's UR lineup, giving Cleric a direct personnel tie into that avant-garde ecosystem beyond stylistic kinship.

Deddom is the solo vehicle of Andrii, a one-man 'orchestra' from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine active since 2018, who plays every instrument himself: guitars, bass, drums, saxophone, piano, harmonica, jaw harp, synths and field recordings. His Bandcamp catalogue is tagged across free jazz, grindcore, noise, drone, ambient and math, and reviewers have described his long-form, aging-themed pieces as spanning 'black metal, free jazz, ambient, and more.'

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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.

Yakuza is a Chicago avant-garde metal band formed in 1999, led by saxophonist/vocalist Bruce Lamont. They build a metal base with progressive flair, folding in free jazz saxophone and clarinet, world music, doom, grind, and post-rock ambience into a jazz-metal hybrid sometimes tagged 'jazzcore.' Their discography spans Way of the Dead (2002, Century Media), Samsara (2006) and Transmutations (2007, Prosthetic), Of Seismic Consequence (2010) and Beyul (2012, Profound Lore), and Sutra (2023, Svart Records).

Solo vehicle of German musician Leonhard von Stein (Eichstätt, Bavaria), prolific 2013-2016 across Stonehill and Cosmic Gates Records (Rise of the Behemoth, Of Silence and Tears, The Taste of Mankind, Buried in Blood, Tropfen, Sun EP, Lightforger). German-language reviews (metal.de) place the project 'at the intersection of black metal, drone, doom, psychedelic, electro and jazz' — instrumental 'headphone cinema' of guitar noise-cascades, jazzy rhythms, melancholic piano/strings, sitar, electronic beats and extensively explored drones, plus a heavily processed EBM/electro mode on other releases.

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Plebeian Grandstand is a French extreme-metal band formed in Toulouse in 2005, evolving from blackened mathcore into a dissonant hybrid of avant-black metal, chaotic hardcore, noise and experimental electronica. Their promo material frames the sound as 'avant-Black Metal, chaotic Hardcore, blown-out Jazz, corrosive Noise, experimental Electronica and death Industrial.' Releases include 'False Highs, True Lows' (2016) and 'Rien ne suffit' (2021), with a lineup that includes a dedicated modular synthesist.

Painkiller (stylized PainKiller) is an avant-garde trio formed in 1991 by John Zorn (saxophone), Bill Laswell (bass) and Mick Harris (drums), the latter fresh from grindcore pioneers Napalm Death. Their early records Guts of a Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992) fused blast-beat grindcore with free jazz, while the 1994 double album Execution Ground steered the group toward dub and ambient textures. After Harris left in 1995 to focus on electronic music, Zorn and Laswell continued Painkiller with drummers including Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, and the original trio reunited in 2024 with Harris on electronics.

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.

Ex Eye are an instrumental NYC quartet formed in 2016, led by experimental saxophonist Colin Stetson with Greg Fox (Liturgy) on drums, Shahzad Ismaily (Secret Chiefs 3, Ceramic Dog) on synth and Toby Summerfield on guitar. Grown out of Stetson's Gorecki-reimagining sessions, they fuse black metal's hypnotic repetition and blast beats with free-jazz saxophone and drone, releasing a self-titled debut on Relapse Records in 2017. It is one of the more successful jazz-metal syntheses of its era.