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Peculate is the solo avant-garde/progressive metal project of American composer Ben Norton, self-releasing everything for free since 2012 under a self-styled 'Metal in Opposition' banner. Norton fuses djent and mathcore aggression with 12-tone technique, Zappa-esque jazz-fusion tangents and polished production, occasionally detouring into satirical protest-song territory (2015's viral 'This Sick Beat™'). It reads as a bedroom-scale answer to the Zorn/Zappa strand of metal-adjacent avant-composition.

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Hunab Ku was a Seattle avant-garde metal act built around vocalist Mike Gilmore, guitarist Luke Jaeger (ex-Sleep Terror, joined 2008 replacing founding guitarist Dan Hagerty), bassist Matt Finn, and drummer Mark Villano. Their 2007 debut "The Gaze Inward" (Black Sheep Records) was reviewed as chaotic mathcore-indebted avant metal, drawing explicit critical comparisons to Dillinger Escape Plan, Cephalic Carnage, and Fantomas, with vocals ranging from screams to croons and moans. IMPORTANT DISAMBIGUATION: this is distinct from an unrelated Costa Rican black metal band of the same name (founded 2016 by Lord Eythraz) and a dark-ambient project — the Seattle act is the one matching the chart description and reviews cited here.

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Upsilon Acrux is an American avant-progressive / math rock band founded in 1998 by guitarist Paul Lai, who started the group near San Diego before relocating to Los Angeles. Built on interlocking twin-guitar counterpoint, odd meters and a frequently rotating cast of players around Lai as the sole constant, they trade in a dense, athletic, largely instrumental 'brutal prog' indebted to King Crimson and Japanese noise-rock forebears like Ruins. They released their most widely heard albums, Galapagos Momentum (2007) and Radian Futura (2009), on the Maryland avant-rock label Cuneiform Records.

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Black Heart Sutra is a New York experimental/mathcore project centered on composer-violinist Earl Maneein (SEVEN)SUNS) and drummer Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant, Secret Chiefs 3, frequent John Zorn collaborator), expanded on record with guest vocalists including Jessica Pimentel. Their 2017 debut album "Zersetzung" (Still Water Recordings) mixes progressive-jazz harmony with mathcore's chaotic, Locust-like structural shifts.

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These Arms Are Snakes were a Seattle post-hardcore band active from 2002 to 2009, formed by former members of Botch and Kill Sadie. Blending punk urgency with math-rock complexity and synth textures, they released three studio albums on Jade Tree: Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home (2004), Easter (2006), and Tail Swallower and Dove (2008). After disbanding, bassist Brian Cook went on to Russian Circles and Sumac.

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Raxinasky is a Brussels, Belgium noise-core/mathcore/avant-garde metal outfit formed in 2001, self-described as 'Freemetal' and compared to Zu, Ruins, and Discordance Axis. Their records — the demo Koffie Anhal (2003), Transport de Viandes (2005), and The Anti-apopathodiaphulatophobicoustical Days (2008) — are built on abrupt time/dynamic shifts and swings between harsh extremes and gentler clean sections, with a trumpet in the original founding lineup.

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SikTh are a British progressive/technical metal band formed in Watford, Hertfordshire in 1999, known for their dual-vocalist attack, dissonant mathcore-adjacent riffing, and unorthodox compositions. They are widely cited as pioneers of the djent and tech-metal movement, breaking through with their debut album The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out Wait for Something Wild (2003), followed by Death of a Dead Day (2006) and, after a reunion, The Future in Whose Eyes? (2017).

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Battles is an experimental/math rock band formed in New York City in 2002, celebrated for welding the muscle of a live rock band to loop-based electronics and processed vocals. Their debut album Mirrored (2007) on Warp Records, and its lead single "Atlas," became touchstones of the era's digitally-augmented rock. Anchored by drummer John Stanier's metronomic power and guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams' looping, they have continued as a duo since bassist Dave Konopka's departure, releasing Gloss Drop (2011), La Di Da Di (2015) and Juice B Crypts (2019).

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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.

A Northern California one-man band whose 'Never Was' (2024) and 'Shriek' (Lou Kelly...and Friends) LPs bounce between jazzcore, mathcore, grindcore, crust punk and harsh-noise-wall under a self-described 'Progressive-Violence-Jazz' banner, all written, performed and produced solo. The 'Shriek' record began as a drunken online invitation for strangers to sing over Kelly's instrumentals and grew into a 14-track collaborative curio on the tiny label THE HILLS ARE DEAD Records. Listeners have likened the results to a heavier Mr. Bungle/Mike Patton side-project, though that is a stylistic comparison only — no verified personal connection exists.