Hoplites (Ὁπλίτης)

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.

Ephel Duath was an Italian avant-garde metal band from Padua, active 1998-2014 and led throughout by guitarist Davide Tiso. Their sound is 'an unorthodox combination of hardcore punk and jazz fusion,' recruiting players from jazz, blues, funk and progressive backgrounds. Later lineups featured vocalist Karyn Crisis and drummer Marco Minnemann, and the band released through Code666, Earache and Agonia Records.

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.

A prog-extreme-metal supergroup uniting Jason McMaster (Watchtower, Dangerous Toys) on vocals, Davide Tiso (Ephel Duath, Botanist) on guitar, and Hannes Grossmann (ex-Necrophagist, Alkaloid) on drums, Howling Sycamore melts thrash, black metal, and old-school prog-metal singing into dense, riff-heavy epics. Their two albums draw a deep guest bench — Marty Friedman and Kevin Hufnagel (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia) on lead guitar, Bruce Lamont on baritone sax — that pulls the sound toward technical/progressive metal more than cross-genre experimentalism. Jamie King of Between the Buried and Me mixed and mastered the sophomore record, Seven Pathways to Annihilation.

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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.

If Nothing Is (stylized/credited as INI on Metal Archives) is a Trondheim, Norway avant-garde metal project fronted by vocalist Boeddelen, guitarists Håkon Grytvik and Mats Stenberg, drummer Vegard Myrdal Berg, and bassist/main composer Lars Emil Måløy — also the bassist of Dødheimsgard. Emerging from the ashes of an earlier band called Revocation around 2008, the group self-released its sprawling, ten-track debut "If Nothing Is" digitally in 2015, later remixed, remastered and issued physically by Dark Essence Records in 2021 with a guest synth/sample contribution from Dødheimsgard's Vicotnik. The record moves through thrash, speed, death and black metal within long-form, technically demanding compositions compared to early Atheist and Cynic.

Henget is a Finnish avant-garde black metal project founded in late 2021 by guitarist Jesse J. Heikkinen (also of The Abbey and Iterum Nata) and vocalist King Aleijster de Satan (of Saturnian Mist), signing to Season of Mist in September 2022. Their debut album Beyond North Star (May 2023) pursues a violent hallucinatory journey rooted in psychedelia, the occult, and ancient shamanism.

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Ex Eye are an instrumental NYC quartet formed in 2016, led by experimental saxophonist Colin Stetson with Greg Fox (Liturgy) on drums, Shahzad Ismaily (Secret Chiefs 3, Ceramic Dog) on synth and Toby Summerfield on guitar. Grown out of Stetson's Gorecki-reimagining sessions, they fuse black metal's hypnotic repetition and blast beats with free-jazz saxophone and drone, releasing a self-titled debut on Relapse Records in 2017. It is one of the more successful jazz-metal syntheses of its era.

Obscuring Veil is an international avant-garde black metal project assembled in 2018 around Matron Thorn (also of Ævangelist) on guitars/vocals, with Maurice 'Mories' De Jong (Gnaw Their Tongues, De Magia Veterum) on keyboards/synths, H.V. Lyngdal (Wormlust) on bass/piano, Jarle Byberg (Urgehal) on drums, and Kabukimono on voices, releasing through I, Voidhanger Records. Their 2019 debut Fleshvoid to Naught was described by reviewers as black metal 'played by free jazz musicians,' a dissonant, ghostlike plunge into psychedelic murk.

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Venomous Echoes is the solo dissonant black/death metal project of Ohio multi-instrumentalist Ben Vanweelden, threading cosmic-horror and body-dysmorphia narrative concepts through blast-driven black-death chaos punctuated by dark jazz saxophone and synth interludes. Across three full-lengths — most recently Dysmor (I, Voidhanger, 2025) — the project builds sprawling, epic-length tracks that pair Lovecraft/Cronenberg-inflected horror themes with technical, atmospheric extremity. It sits in the current wave of one-person avant-death/black projects released through boutique labels like I, Voidhanger, Jaibaná, and Vargheist.