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Ephel Duath was an Italian avant-garde metal band from Padua, active 1998-2014 and led throughout by guitarist Davide Tiso. Their sound is 'an unorthodox combination of hardcore punk and jazz fusion,' recruiting players from jazz, blues, funk and progressive backgrounds. Later lineups featured vocalist Karyn Crisis and drummer Marco Minnemann, and the band released through Code666, Earache and Agonia Records.

Kexelür is a Santiago, Chile trio formed around 2021 playing atmospheric, dissonant, and psychedelic black metal built around free improvisation. Their releases are billed as largely improvised live sessions, with reviewers noting 'jazz fusion inspired soloing/leads' layered over the black metal foundation. The band communicates only through single-letter pseudonyms (Λ., V., J.), with Λ. also running the solo project Fatalys (not in the E.M.M.A. atlas).

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Epistasis is a New York-based experimental black metal quartet distinguished by Amy Mills' vocals and trumpet, splicing modern-classical dissonance (cited influences: Bartok, Ligeti, Part) and avant-jazz color into abrasive, atmospheric black metal. Their 2014 Crucial Blast album 'Light Through Dead Glass' was engineered by Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans) and drew press comparisons to Ved Buens Ende and Virus for its dissonant, jagged songwriting. Drummer Alex Cohen also plays in Pyrrhon and Malignancy, and Mills has guested on trumpet for Castevet and Psalm Zero — none of which are in the current atlas.

Nirrti is a solo psychedelic black metal project based in Orlová, Czechia, signed to Depressive Illusions Records. The project's music has been described as eerie, dissonant, and 'progressive black metal played through the lens of psychedelics and jazz,' aiming to convey darkness, uncertainty, and glimpses of other dimensions rather than adhering to traditional black metal norms. Releases include 'Psychonautix' (2022), 'Palindromos' (2023), and 'Cyberpsychosis' (2024), the latter continuing the project's cyber/psychedelic conceptual throughline.

Chicago's Murmur mutate black metal's frost into something stranger, threading Moog synths, jazz-inflected dissonance, and Midwest punk urgency through shrieked, tremolo-driven songwriting. Where peers double down on cold atmosphere, Murmur's albums (2010's Mainlining the Lugubrious, its 2014 self-titled follow-up) reach for space-rock sprawl and noise-rock grit instead. The result sits closer to post-black-metal's outer edges than to any orthodox scene.

Prague's Voluptas channel 90s Norwegian avant-black (Ved Buens Ende, Dodheimsgard, Enslaved) through psychedelia, free jazz and drone-rock, with a recurring guest saxophonist smearing Alban Berg-inspired lines across the riffs. Their debut EP Ved Rums Ende (2016) closed out a punkier chapter before Towards the Great White Nothing (2020) and the guest-cello-and-sax Where Celestial Bodies Guide Not (2025) pushed further into dynamic, atmospheric territory. The band's name is a direct nod to Ved Buens Ende.

One-man project of linguist Liu Zhenyang (born in Ningbo, China; studying in Paris), Hoplites fuses dissonant black and death metal with mathcore and zeuhl-style repetition, topped with squealing saxophone. All song and album titles are rendered in Greek despite lyrical content addressing Chinese social themes. The project debuted with an EP in 2021, released three full-lengths in 2023, and put the project on an open-ended hiatus in mid-2024 as Zhenyang shifted focus to a new project, Dgra.

Norwegian avant-garde metal band formed in Oslo in 2000 by Carl-Michael Eide (Czral), who considered it a continuation of his earlier band Ved Buens Ende. Their angular, dissonant sound folds jazz and death-metal elements into an idiosyncratic avant-rock framework across albums like 'Carheart' (2003) and 'The Black Flux' (2008, Season of Mist). The band disbanded in 2018.

Malconfort is a London trio named after a Deathspell Omega song, and on their 2024 debut Humanism (Transcending Obscurity Records) they take black metal apart from the inside. Guitarist/synthesist Fas, vocalist Nuun, and drummer/vocalist/synth player Kopczak build songs around dubbed-out basslines and jazz- and electronic-indebted drumming, with jutting, non-cyclical song structures. Harsh vocals appear sparingly, interlaced with whispers, barely audible crooning, laughter and spoken-word asides, drawing critical comparisons to Virus, Oranssi Pazuzu, and Mick Harris's Scorn.

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Tabernacle ov Thee Flesh is a Brazilian avant-garde/experimental black metal project from Joinville, released via Ultra Gash Records, featuring Naboth E. Coli (vocals, keyboards), L. Borgia Rossetti (guitar, also of Esmectatons and Os Legais) and Leal Barroso (drums, also of Esmectatons and Zombie Cookbook). Their sole album Versículos de Autoflagelo (2021) comprises 25 short tracks forming one continuous suite steeped in free improvisation, jazz and noise traditions.