Five the Hierophant

The Crawling Chaos is a Moscow noise/sludge act formed in 2013 ('filth & stench since 2013'), blending doom, black metal and drone into an abrasive, atmosphere-heavy sound thickened by saxophone and noise/synth layers. They've released a self-titled full-length (2015), Гильотины поют о любви (2016), the EP Стерилизация преданных слуг, and the 2024 split Организованное безумие (Organized Madness) with fellow atlas act Neon Scaffold.

Venowl are a Chicago extreme doom/noise trio recording under the symbols ][, ::, and //, blending blackened noise, sludge, and harsh feedback into long-form, punishing tracks. Their 2012 debut 'Patterns of Failure' was remastered by James Plotkin, and their 2014 split with microtonal-guitar act Jute Gyte brought in guest violinist Troy Schafer for extended-technique, avant-classical passages over a 27-minute track.

Nightly Gale are a Polish 'suicidal'/experimental doom metal band from Zabrze, formed in January 1996 and still releasing as of their 2008 album Imprint. Founder Slawek Pyrzyk's slow, melancholic doom foundation has been layered over the years with second-vocalist Waldemar Sagan's black metal screams and, notably, live saxophone passages that reviewers single out as an unusually organic touch for the genre. Their debut ...and Jesus Wept (2001) came out on Pagan Records, and Imprint (2008) pushed the format further into a single continuous 70-minute piece.

Sigihl is a drone/doom/avant-garde metal act from the Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, formed in 2012, describing themselves as 'drone jazz from the hellyard.' Their sole full release, Trauermärsche (and a tango upon the world's grave) (2014, Arachnophobia Records), fuses sludge, doom, drone and black metal with saxophone, funereal atmosphere, and tango-inflected song titles.

Umbra Nihil is a Finnish doom metal project built around multi-instrumentalist Vilpir (Ville Vierimaa), pairing slow, expansive doom weight with 70s progressive rock and Zeuhl-inflected passages, flute textures, and Lovecraft/weird-fiction-derived ritual concepts — The Borderland Rituals draws on William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland. The band shares lead guitarist Master Warjomaa with atlas act Aarni, tying it directly into the same oddball Finnish doom orbit. Largely dormant since 2008 due to lack of motivation from its songwriters.

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Zatvor is a long-running experimental doom/sludge/drone project from Kursk, Russia, active since 1996. Their 2018 release 'Ключ земли' is a single 49-minute piece blending guitars, drums, flute, and saxophone with noise and electronic textures over a drone/doom foundation, mixed and mastered by James Plotkin.

Zhertvoprinosheniya (Жертвоприношения, 'Sacrifices') is a St. Petersburg experimental funeral-doom/black metal project that explicitly reconstructs the late Sergey Kuryokhin's improvisatory 'Pop-Mechanics' performance-art tradition. 'Некромеханика' (2020) centers the self-built Soviet-era 'utyugon' synthesizer alongside trombone, radio noise and electronics for a drone-heavy, ritualistic funeral atmosphere rather than conventional riffing. It reads as a direct lineage act carrying Russian avant-garde/noise performance art into black/doom metal territory.

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.

Maquerelle is a French one-man outsider industrial project founded in 2014 by an artist performing as "Mr. Maquerelle," based in Chagny, France. The project layers black metal, noise, krautrock, spoken word and dark-ambient textures across a steady stream of self-recorded Bandcamp releases (Au Cinéma avec des Porcs, Ghaisergrad, Betty, Siffler L'Indifférence, and others), sometimes joined by collaborator Andréa Spartà.

Spintria is a free-jazz-inflected black/drone metal unit from Nashville, Tennessee, built around guitarist Ryan Clackner, keyboardist Edward Longo and drummer Josh Byrd, joined by guest saxophonist Colin Fisher. Their two full-lengths — a 2021 self-titled debut and 2022's Bacchanalia — stretch black-metal drone into side-long, saxophone-scorched free-improv freakouts that deliberately blur the line between written and improvised music. It's a small, DIY discography, but a genuinely strange one, closer to a free-jazz collective that occasionally detonates blast beats than a conventional metal band.

Spintria (self-titled, full album)play in the dock

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