Goatchrist
United Kingdom · formed 2014 · last active 2022
Goatchrist is the solo vehicle of Leeds, UK musician Jacob Guilherme, formed in 2014, an explicitly occult project layering piano, orchestral textures, and jazz-inflected instrumental passages over an Orthodox black-metal core.
SCORE PROFILE
Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.
WHY THOSE SCORES
- Jazzy 4 — Jazz music style instruments can be heard at times on The Sacred Teachings of Aleister Crowley.
- Death 3 — Project began as blackened death metal.
- Black 6 — Built on an 'Orthodox Black Metal compositional basis' per the band's own self-description.
- Technical 5 — Instrumental passages described as very experimental and avant garde with progressive moments.
- Theatrical 4 — Full-length concept records built around Crowleyan and Kabbalistic esoteric themes.
- Ambient 2 — Piano intros and orchestral textures open several tracks.
MEMBERS
- Jacob Guilherme (aka Dominator Xul'Ahabra)vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards, all instruments
FURTHER LISTENING
Nearest score profiles in the atlas.
- UnaffiliatedEI 12Morpheus TalesBlackTechnicalJazzy
Morpheus Tales is a Greek experimental/progressive black metal project from Thessaloniki, built around core member Paris (guitars, drums/keys programming) with Georgios P on guitars and Lee on vocals for their most recent work. Their music is billed as 'avantgarde post black metal' that's psychedelic, strange and concept-driven — 2014's Secular Noir is a 'cosmic noir tale of greed and lust,' while 2017's II is an 8-chapter concept record about hypocrisy, false prophets and the denial of reality, featuring a guest saxophone part from Orestis Exidaris. The project appears self-released/unsigned, distributing exclusively through its own Bandcamp.
- UnaffiliatedEI 11ArkhethBlackTechnicalJazzy
Arkheth is the long-running (2001-present) Australian project of Tyrone 'Tyraenos' Kostitch, now a one-man vehicle for symphonic-turned-experimental black metal after growing out of the Orange, NSW band Eternal Dark. Its 2018 high point, 12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew, folds saxophonist Glen Wholohan's honking, Contortions-indebted jazz lines into black-metal songwriting critics have dubbed 'an inverted Shining' -- black metal wading into jazz rather than the reverse. It is one of the more distinctive jazz/black-metal hybrids operating outside the Norwegian axis the label comparison implies.
- UnaffiliatedEI 9Deathspell OmegaBlackTechnicalJazzy
Deathspell Omega is an anonymous French black metal collective, formed in 1998, that turned from orthodox raw black metal into one of the most cerebral, theologically-preoccupied acts of the 'dissonant' avant-black wave. From Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice (2004) and Kénôse (2005) onward their music folds jazz-derived chord voicings, math-rock complexity and dark-ambient/choral interludes into blast-driven black metal. The band never confirms its lineup, so personnel details are limited to widely-reported names.
- UnaffiliatedEI 14AenaonBlackTechnicalJazzy
Aenaon is a Greek avant-garde/progressive black metal band from Ioannina, formed in 2005 and signed to Agonia Records. Mastermind Achilleas C. (also of Varathron and Katavasia) leads the band with drummer Haris (Varathron), vocalist Astrous (Katavasia) and saxophonist Orestis Zyrinis, whose horn work gives their dark, noir-tinged black metal a distinctive jazz-inflected edge, as heard on 2022's 'Mnemosyne.'
- UnaffiliatedEI 18MaladieBlackTechnicalTheatrical
Maladie is a German 'plague metal' collective from Ludwigshafen, founded in 2009 by multi-instrumentalist Björn Köppler, whose self-coined genre name plays on the French word for sickness. Signed to Apostasy Records, the band pairs a progressive/melodic black metal core with cinematic orchestration, jazz-inflected saxophone (courtesy of Hauke Peters) and deliberately theatrical, multi-vocalist arrangements across a numbered 'Symptoms' album series. Their sixth full-length, The Dance of Tragedies (2026), was praised for eclectic musicianship even as some reviewers found its genre-toggling and irony overplayed.
- UnaffiliatedEI 13InquisitorBlackTechnicalJazzy
Inquisitor were a Vilnius, Lithuania avant-garde black metal band active 2002-2016, best known for the concept album The Quantum Theory of Id (2010), a four-part metaphysical narrative pairing harsh black-metal riffing with jazzy/spooky acoustic piano and disjointed, technical song structures. A 2014 follow-up, Clinamen | Episteme, continued in the same 'progressive, complex and extremely dynamic blackened metal' vein. They are a niche entry in the Lithuanian black metal underground with no documented ties to other EMMA atlas acts.
- UnaffiliatedEI 10Nefarious MashBlackTechnicalJazzy
Nefarious Mash is the solo vehicle of Grenoble-based contemporary-classical composer Eddy Jaber, founded in late 2021 to bridge concert-hall composition and extreme metal. Debut LP In Memory of Your Hopes (2022, reissued 2024 on Wormholedeath) builds dense 'harmonic cathedrals' of dissonant black metal, threading in jazz-derived harmony, polyrhythmic surprises and theatrically flexible vocal delivery across nine long-form tracks.
- UnaffiliatedEI 14AryosBlackTechnicalTheatrical
Aryos is a long-running French avant-garde black metal act from Ussac/Brive-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze), formed in 1994 (originally as Forlorn, renamed 1997). Built around an occult/esoteric concept by members using the stage names Napharion, Pétal and Alilteas Gornnec, their sound layers jazz-tinged synths, classical piano and prog-rock textures over a black metal core. Later releases like Les Stigmates d'Hécate (2015) lean into atmospheric, folk-tagged textures.
- UnaffiliatedEI 12BlutmondBlackTechnicalJazzy
Blutmond is a Swiss avant-garde black metal band from Olten, active since the early 2000s, whose lineup includes saxophonist/guitarist Marc (also of Schammasch) alongside vocalist-guitarist John, vocalist-bassist Jerry, guitarist Simon and drummer Fabio. Beginning as a more straightforward black metal act (Endzeit, 2006), the band pivoted toward genre-blending 'urban mysticism' on Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days (2010) and The Revolution Is Dead! (2012, Code666), the latter folding saxophone, jazz and post-hardcore textures into black metal and drawing guest vocal spots from Anna Murphy (Eluveitie), Managarm (Varg), Markus Baltes (Autumnblaze) and Fredy Schnyder (Nucleus Torn).
- UnaffiliatedEI 17AtrorumBlackTechnicalTheatrical
Atrorum is a two-person avant-garde/progressive black metal project from Munich, Germany, formed in 1998 by vatroS (guitars, bass, clean vocals, programming) and umbrA (vocals, keyboards, programming). Across three albums on Apathia Records — most notably 2015's Structurae — the band folds symphonic black and death metal into gothic organ, choir, cabaret, funeral-doom, jazz, and industrial-electronic passages, alternating harsh and clean vocals delivered in French, German, and English.