Gigan

Blood Incantation are an American death-metal band from Denver, Colorado, formed in 2011 around guitarist-vocalist Paul Riedl and drummer Isaac Faulk. Their 2016 debut Starspawn, on Dark Descent Records, drew wide acclaim for its cavernous, progressive, cosmically themed death metal; they later moved to Century Media and stretched their palette across the fully ambient synth album Timewave Zero (2022) and the sprawling Absolute Elsewhere (2024). They rank among the most celebrated acts of the modern death-metal revival.

Meshuggah is a Swedish extreme metal band formed in Umeå in 1987, celebrated for the polymetric and polyrhythmic architecture of their music — thundering, downtuned guitar riffs written in shifting odd groupings over a steady 4/4 pulse. Fusing thrash, death, and groove metal with a cerebral jazz-fusion sensibility, they inadvertently launched the subgenre now known as djent and became one of the most technically influential acts in modern heavy music. Guitarist Fredrik Thordendal's Allan Holdsworth-inspired soloing and drummer Tomas Haake's mechanical precision are cornerstones of the sound.

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Gojira are a French metal band from Ondres, formed in 1996 as Godzilla and renamed Gojira in 2001. They fuse technical death metal, groove, progressive and post-metal into a percussive, pinch-harmonic-driven style, wrapped in lyrics about spirituality, philosophy and the environment. Their lineup of the Duplantier brothers with Christian Andreu and Jean-Michel Labadie has been unchanged since the rename; they became the first French band to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart and, in 2024, the first metal band to perform at an Olympic opening ceremony.

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One-man US avant-garde black/death metal project by the artist known only as R.P., combining heavily syncopated death-metal riffing with nightmarish soundscapes, industrial rhythms and film-score-like atmospheric passages. No Clean Singing (2017) singled out its 'distinctly smooth' unfurling and sparing-but-grand blast-beat eruptions against a mostly slower, tech-doom-leaning foundation. Discography: 82121 (2014), HHEOALLE (2017), The Hunting Boar! The Hunting Tyrant! (2020), compiled as Collected Works: MMXIV-MMXX (2023).

Thecodontion is a Rome-based black/death metal band formed in 2016 around the unusual choice to abandon guitars entirely, building their sound from two finger-picked distorted basses (plus a third for solos), drums, and vocals. Their releases, including the 2020 full-length Supercontinent on I, Voidhanger Records, follow a 'prehistoric metal of death' concept tracing Earth's continental drift and ancient lifeforms. Reviewers note the band moved from a rawer black/death attack toward a more atmospheric, minimalist, and surprisingly melodic sound, punctuated by bass-driven ambient instrumental passages.

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Montreal trio blending sludge and death metal weight with jazz-inflected saxophone, ambient dronescapes, and psychedelic textures across long-form concept albums. Their 2022 record Hivemind unfolds as a continuous sci-fi narrative about first contact with an insectoid hivemind, drawing comparisons to early Mastodon, Dvne, Neurosis, and Oranssi Pazuzu. Formed from the ashes of Montreal band The Wild Hunt in December 2016, the band restructured as a three-piece in January 2021 with all members sharing vocal duties and reaching for non-traditional instrumentation.

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Light Dweller is the solo dissonant death/black metal project of Cameron Boesch, based in Phoenix, Arizona, who writes, performs, records, mixes and masters every release himself. Since the 2018 EP 'Nullity of Light,' the project has moved from Immolation/Incantation-indebted death metal through Ulcerate/Krallice-style angularity, culminating in 2025's 'The Subjugate' (released via Avantgarde Music's death-metal imprint Unorthodox Emanations), which reviewers describe as adding a 'glitchy, percussive pulse' to its bleak, blackened atmosphere. Boesch also regularly turns up alongside other one-person underground acts on split releases, most recently 2025's 'Illusory Dissolvents.'

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Ecliptic is the solo experimental-death/drone-noise vehicle of Michael Baer, active since 2017, originally based in San Diego and now Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Distinct from an older Virginia melodic black metal band of the same name (dormant since 2010), this Ecliptic is a prolific bedroom-auteur catalog of noise-drone singles, serialist sound pieces and black/death-tinged full-lengths like 'Undulating Echoes of Stirring Subconscious' (2019), with newer material (2024-2026) branching into related side projects. Sits in the experimental death/drone underground rather than any established scene lineage.

Gorguts is a Canadian extreme-metal band formed in Sherbrooke, Québec in 1989 around founder Luc Lemay, and one of the acts that turned death metal toward dissonant, atonal, structurally complex 'avant-garde' territory (notably on 1998's Obscura and 2013's Colored Sands). Their experimentalism lives inside the death-metal idiom rather than in cross-genre blending, pairing technically demanding writing with harsh, jagged harmony. The reunion lineup drew in New York avant-metal figures Kevin Hufnagel and Colin Marston.

Out of the Mouth of Graves is a South Carolina dissonant death metal trio formed in 2021, featuring members also active in Vølus and Acausal Intrusion, releasing through Vargheist Records. Their debut Harbinger Unceremonious (2022) and the Lovecraft-themed Shrines to Dagon (2023) build cavernous, off-kilter death metal around H.P. Lovecraft's horror mythos.

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