Decline of the I

Choronzon is a merger of two unrelated American projects — Florida black-metaller P. Emerson Williams and San Francisco industrial artist Demitria Monde Thraam — who discovered each other online in 2002 and combined forces. What resulted, starting with 1998's Samoth-signed Magog Agog, is ritualistic, electronics-soaked black-industrial metal conceived explicitly as ceremonial music for occult initiates. Williams' background in London's FoolishPeople theatre troupe, where he literally played the demon Choronzon on stage, leaks into everything the band does.

Perdurabo (Magog Agog)play in the dock

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Ophe is a one-man avant-garde/post-black metal project from Châtillon, France, created by Christophe "Bargnatt XIX" Denhez (also frontman of OMRÅDE and Demande à la Poussière), who handles all vocals, instruments and programming. Debut album Litteras Ad Tristia Maestrum Solitude arrived on My Kingdom Music in 2018, followed by Somnium Nocte Mendaciis (2022) on the same label. The project pairs primal black metal with dissonant, hermetic song structures and post-industrial, noise-inflected atmospheres, drawing comparisons to Dodecahedron, Ævangelist and Spektr.

Dødheimsgard (DHG) are a Norwegian band formed in Oslo in 1994 that mutated from the raw black metal of Kronet Til Konge (1995) into the fractured avant-garde industrial black metal of 666 International (1999). Led throughout by Vicotnik, they became a touchstone of the experimental wing of Norwegian black metal. Kronet Til Konge's lineup featured Darkthrone's Fenriz on bass, and its closer 'When Heavens End' carries an additional-songwriting credit for Ulver founder Sigmund 'Grellmund' Løkken.

The Kovenant are a Norwegian band formed in 1992 (as Covenant) in Hamar that began in symphonic black metal and reinvented itself as industrial/cyber 'space metal' after its 1999 rename. The pivotal 1998 album Nexus Polaris, released on Nuclear Blast, drew in Mayhem drummer Jan Axel 'Hellhammer' Blomberg, who has remained the band's drummer. Fronted by Lex Icon (ex-Dimmu Borgir) and Psy Coma, their programming-drenched sound sits at the electronic edge of the Norwegian avant-black scene.

Crystalline Thunderbolts Pierce the Sacred Mountain is a synth-driven raw black metal / dark ambient project of prolific Dutch multi-instrumentalist Maurice 'Mories' de Jong (Gnaw Their Tongues, Cloak of Altering, De Magia Veterum, Obscuring Veil, Aderlating, Seirom). Releases like Blessed Hands Touch the Ophanim Under the Golden Rainbows (2023) and Shine Like the Suicidal Madness of the Sacred Amethyst (2024) are built from 'wild keyboard music exclusively' — chaotic, saturated electronic textures layered with black-metal atmosphere and grandiose, scripture-tinged song titles about celestial beings. It's tagged avant-garde/symphonic/black metal on metal.academy and functions as one more mutation in de Jong's sprawling, genre-blurring catalog.

Cloak of Altering is the avant-garde black metal solo alias of Dutch multi-instrumentalist Maurice "Mories" de Jong, begun in 2011 as a continuation of his earlier black metal band Ophiuchus and run alongside his other projects Gnaw Their Tongues, De Magia Veterum, Aderlating and Seirom. Where De Magia Veterum is his straight black-metal outlet, Cloak of Altering fuses 'mutated symphonic black metal' with breakcore-derived electronics and industrial noise, inviting comparisons to Blut Aus Nord and An Axis of Perdition. Albums such as Plague Beasts (2014) and Manifestation (2015), released via Crucial Blast, circle cosmic and occult themes across sprawling, drone-heavy tracks.

The Wicked was a short-lived (1999-c.2005) Finnish melodic black/industrial/avant-garde metal act from Uusimaa, released on Spikefarm Records, built around Necrotron (guitars, keyboards - real name Henri 'Trollhorn' Sorvali, also of Moonsorrow and Finntroll) and vocalist Lucius M.K. Their two albums, ...For Theirs Is the Flesh (2002) and Sonic Scriptures of the End Times (2004), pile industrial beats, voice-over samples, and symphonic/new-age keyboard writing onto a black-metal chassis, drawing comparisons to a metal Danny Elfman scoring a Tim Burton film. It's a genuinely odd, theatrical corner of the late-90s/early-2000s Finnish extreme scene.

Leukotomy was a black metal duo from Hanoi, Vietnam, formed in late 2020 and active until 2023. Their sole full-length, 'Eternal Path to Eden' (House of Ygra, March 2023), is a nine-part conceptual 'tragedy' set in a gothic world, blending second-wave black metal aesthetics with avant-garde, noise, and ambient elements to tell a story of vengeance, mental torment, and unrequited love. The album was produced by Imperial Cult (Elcrost), mastered by Nemo Lockeheart, and features spoken-word passages by Sam Tang.

Eternal Path to Edenplay in the dock

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Abstruse is the one-man experimental black/thrash/industrial metal project of Athens, Greece-based musician Substant, active since 2002. Substant composes via an idiosyncratic 'order-based system' that treats intervals as numeric patterns rather than conventional scales, and has built custom software ('motion2sound') to translate movement into sound and multi-sensory staging elements. The project's 2019 album Submerge: Ritual is structured as a conceptual 'Pan Ritual' narrative; a 2010 demo, Ivory Tower, was ranked among the year's top albums by the Avantgarde Metal webzine.

Void is a UK avant-garde/fringe metal project active since 1999, built around founding member and guitarist/vocalist Matt Jarman. Press consistently bills the band as 'avant-garde metal pioneers,' fusing black, death and industrial metal with noise, electronica and post-metal songwriting, citing touchstones from Dødheimsgard and Emperor to Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares. The current lineup grew directly out of Dødheimsgard's 2019 'Void Dancers' tour, and features musicians who also play in Dødheimsgard and Doedsmaghird. Their fourth album, Jadjow (2023, Brucia Records), was co-written by that touring lineup.