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Shining is a Swedish depressive/suicidal black metal band formed by Niklas Kvarforth in 1996 — a genuinely distinct entity from the atlas's Norwegian blackjazz Shining (shining-norway). Musically it is rooted in DSBM with early doom influences, gradually adopting clean guitars, solos and odd meters as it drifted toward progressive extreme metal, its avant-garde credentials thinner than most atlas nodes. Its most 'experimental' dimension is arguably Kvarforth's notorious confrontational stagecraft (self-mutilation, razor-blade distribution). Personnel overlap with Mayhem and Arcturus is significant.

Porta Nigra is a German avant-garde black metal band founded in Koblenz in 2010 by Gilles deRais (guitars, bass) and drummer/vocalist O., who recorded the first two albums as a duo before expanding to a full band. Their concept records — Fin de Siècle (2012), Kaiserschnitt (2015), Schöpfungswut (2020) and Weltende (2023), the last inspired by World War I — move between straightforward black metal fury and more psychedelic, spoken-word-laced detours, released through Soulseller Records. Guitarist Gilles deRais has described the project as a way of channeling 'old spirits' through the music.

Titaan is the one-man occult black metal project of Italian musician Lalartu, based in Trieste, built around a conceptual exploration of ancient Mesopotamian mythology across Kadingir (2016) and ITIMA (2020). The project fuses aggressive second-wave black metal with dark ambient textures and ritualistic vocal chanting, aiming for a 'cinematic' rather than song-based listening experience. Releases are issued via the Italian label ATMF.

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Angst Skvadron was a Norwegian avant-garde/post-black metal project formed in 2008 by Trond Bråthen (Trondr Nefas, also of Urgehal, Kvist, and In Lingua Mortua), fusing early-90s black metal with 70s progressive rock around a recurring alien-invasion concept. Core collaborator Lars Fredrik Frøislie (drums, keyboards, mellotron, minimoog) helped build the project's spacey, synth-laden atmosphere across the Flukt (2008) and Sweet Poison (2010) full-lengths on Agonia Records, with Octavia Marina Petru contributing vocals, Tibetan singing bowls, and vocoder. Bråthen died in 2012, and the project's status is listed as split-up.

Beannachd Leibh is the Toronto solo project of Alec McKay (formerly recording as Crux), pairing melody-driven black metal in the vein of Blut Aus Nord with the twisting, prog-damaged structures of Kayo Dot and Time of Orchids. Debut full-length Walking in His Works (2025) stretches songs past nine minutes, mixing blasting extremity with symphonic passages and near-hallucinatory melodic detours. It's black metal built for patience — technically dense and unwilling to settle into a single mode for long.

Osculum Serpentis ('Kiss of the Serpent') is a French one-man raw/vampiric black metal project from Paris, formed in 2022 by Maxime Taccardi under the alias Vipera, who handles all guitars, bass, synth, drums, and vocals. In roughly two years the project released a striking run of material — Maleficia (2023), The Curse of the Vampyre (2023), Miseria (2024), Satanā (2024, Giin Productions), Vampyre Lord (2024), and The Streams of Sorrow (2025) — steeped in the primitivist Légions Noires lineage but pushed toward theatrical excess: Vipera deploys 'a multitude of demonic voices' compared to Attila Csihar's ceremonial delivery, layered over dark-ambient, cinematic textures amid the raw riffing. Reviewers have called it 'sheer diabolic Black Metal extravaganza,' an 'epic, even flamboyant' take on vampiric/occult raw black metal.

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Grave Gnosis is a ritualistic occult black metal band from St. Petersburg, Florida, formed in 2015, rooted in Theistic Satanism, framing its recording sessions as literal ritual and trance work.

Chilean avant-garde/post-black metal band from the Region Metropolitana (Santiago), formed 2008. Blends post-black metal with industrial elements, melodic post-rock, and operatic Spanish-language vocal delivery reminiscent of Arcturus. Discography includes "Rerum Imaginaria" (2012), "Argonautas", and "La Casa de los Siete Espejos" (2024, inspired by a legendary Valparaiso brothel and Sergio Larrain's photography).

Lychgate is a London-based avant-garde black/doom metal band formed around 2011-2012, built on a foundation of pipe/church organ used as the compositional backbone of every track. Their influences span late-19th/early-20th-century art music, Rock in Opposition and musique concrete. They record for Debemur Morti Productions, with a discography running from the 2013 self-titled debut through 2025's 'Precipice.'

Epectase is a Paris duo that folds frantic tremolo-picked black metal into long-form suites of 70s prog, jazz-tinged interludes, and hazy krautrock electronics, sliding between shrieks, operatic cleans, and meditative ambient passages within a single track. Since forming in 2018, multi-instrumentalist Vague and vocalist Avitus have released a steady run of albums and EPs on I, Voidhanger Records and Frozen Records, sitting among the more overtly progressive-rock-indebted corners of the French avant-black underground.

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