Golden Cat Pagoda

Vaina is an active Finnish avant-garde black metal project (formed by siblings in 2014) whose records braid raw black-metal riffing and shrieked/growled vocals with flute, horns, strings, choral and clean singing, and dense ambient/noise passages — critics have compared the effect to Dead Can Dance colliding with black metal. Sung entirely in Finnish, releases run from the 2017 EP Viisikärki through 2024's Unio Mystica (Aesthetic Death, UK).

Mêlée des Aurores is a Québec City atmospheric/dissonant black metal project formed in 2002 by members also of Chasse-Galerie. After a hiatus, returned in 2023 with 'Aube cannibale,' critics placed 'somewhere between Blut Aus Nord, Portal and Deathspell Omega.'

Holdlajtorja is a Hungarian project from Zalaegerszeg formed in 2018 by figures from the country's black metal underground - guitarist/songwriter Inmar (also of Vorkuta), vocalist Kryptagonist (also of Leiru and SIR), and Vorgrov (also of Marblebog and Asattarn). Named for a Lovecraftian vision from At the Mountains of Madness and sung in Hungarian, the band trades blast-beat orthodoxy for slow-unfurling, dark-ambient soundscapes laced with unusual string instruments and 'oriental' melodic passages. Their 2024 debut full-length Arcana et Tenebrae (Sun & Moon Records) was described by reviewers as 'Dark Ambient Avant Garde Music with Black Metal's constant intervention.'

Eidosplay in the dock

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Hail Spirit Noir is a Greek band from Thessaloniki (formed 2010) that welds 1970s psychedelic and progressive rock — vintage organ, synth and mellotron textures — onto a modern second-wave black metal frame. Founded by Haris and Theoharis, both veterans of the prog outfit Rex Mundi and the avant/symphonic project Transcending Bizarre?, the band cultivates an occult, horror-tinged atmosphere across concept albums, drifting further into synth-forward territory on Eden in Reverse. Frequently filed alongside Oranssi Pazuzu and Arcturus as psychedelic/avant-garde black metal.

In the Woods... are a Norwegian avant-garde/progressive metal band from Kristiansand, formed in 1992 from the early Green Carnation lineup. Their debut 'Heart of the Ages' helped shape pagan black metal before the band evolved toward atmospheric, progressive and doom-leaning territory across 'Omnio' and later records, with clean and female vocals broadening the palette. After disbanding in 2000 they reformed in 2014 and continue releasing through Debemur Morti Productions.

Thorne was a short-lived experimental/atmospheric black metal band from Río Gallegos, Argentina, that recorded one demo (Until Their Ruins Be Our Trench, 2013) and one full-length, Ekpyrosis & Restitutio in Pristinum Status, released as a limited cassette in 2017 by Brotherhood of Light Recordings. The album mixes Spanish-language black metal with lengthy instrumental passages and a lute-song arrangement of Renaissance composer John Dowland's 'Grief'. The band split up after this release.

Dola are a Polish avant-garde black metal trio formed in Poznań in 2018 and now based in Toruń. Their sound couples a dissonant, aggressive black-metal backbone with ritual ambient, sludge/post-metal heaviness and pronounced jazz elements, the latter carried by Maras's trumpet. Recent album 'Tabernakulum' (2024, Piranha Music) swings between brutal dissonance and the atmospheric avant-garde passages that define the band.

Furia is a Polish black metal band formed in Katowice in 2003, fronted by Michał "Nihil" Kuźniak, considered one of the most influential and boundary-pushing acts in the Polish scene. The band's self-described "Nekrofolk" style fuses raw black metal with Polish folk, psychedelia and post-punk, drawing on the industrial/forested landscape of Silesia; Nihil and bassist Kamil "Sars" Staszałek also play together in MasseMord. Furia performed at Primavera Sound in 2014 and was nominated for Polityka's Passport award in 2023 for the album Huta Luna.

Vegard Sverre Tveitan, known as Ihsahn, is the Norwegian guitarist/vocalist of the seminal black metal band Emperor (not currently an E.M.M.A. node) who since 2006 has built an acclaimed solo catalogue blending black metal with progressive rock, industrial and free-jazz textures - most notably via saxophonist Jorgen Munkeby of Shining (Norway). He co-founded the avant-garde project Peccatum with his wife Heidi 'Ihriel' Solberg Tveitan, guested on Arcturus's 'The Sham Mirrors,' and hosted Ulver/Arcturus/Borknagar vocalist Kristoffer Rygg on his own debut. His Hardingrock side project fuses traditional Norwegian Hardanger-fiddle folk music with metal.

Frozen Lakes On Marsplay in the dock

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Prolific solo Australian project (Reservoir, Victoria) started in 1997 by sole member A DMN SHN, self-styled 'Pure Ancient Occult Egyptian Space Metal.' Across 28+ full-lengths on Shaytan Productions the project sets all 189 spells of the Egyptian Book of the Dead to music, blending industrial black metal with choral/orchestral ambience, dungeon synth, dark ambient and layered folk/ethnic instrumentation (mandolins, flutes, arghuls, violins) under funeral-doom passages and ritual chanting.