Lou Kelly

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.

Pecking Out My Stained Glass Eyesplay in the dock

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The Number Twelve Looks Like You is an American mathcore band formed in Bergen County, New Jersey in 2001 (initially as And Ever), taking their name from a 1964 Twilight Zone episode. Their dystopian screamo/grind fuses metal, hardcore, and Frank Zappa-esque experimental shifts across albums including Mongrel (2007) and, after a 2010–2016 split, the comeback record Wild Gods (2019). The band is fronted by longtime vocalist Jesse Korman and guitarist Alexis Pareja, with a lineup that has turned over repeatedly since its early-2000s inception.

Ruin the Smileplay in the dock

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Killing Spree is a French avant-jazz/death-metal duo of saxophonist Matthieu Metzger (Klone, Orchestre National de Jazz) and drummer Grégoire Galichet (Deathcode Society, Kwoon), formed after the pair met on a tour of Japan. Their 2020 debut EP A Violent Legacy reworked Death and Meshuggah tracks through saturated free-jazz saxophone and talkbox, and their 2024 full-length Camouflage (Klonosphere/Season of Mist) pushes further into technical, hardcore-adjacent death-metal-via-jazz territory. Not to be confused with several unrelated straight thrash-metal bands of the same name.

London noisegrind/grindcore project (active c.2009-2023, also recording under the alias 'Spastic Burn Victim') blending full-tilt blastbeat grindcore with free-jazz-noise horn skronk and power-electronics-style synth abuse. Aural Aggravation dubbed its 2021 record Blood & Stomach Pills 'Improv-Free-Grind-Noise-Experimental-Avant-Jazzcore,' comparing the horn work to 'John Coltrane quadruple booked on the same stage as Extreme Noise Terror, Swans and The Incapacitants.' Prolific split/cassette output on Cruel Nature, Damien and Slime City Records.

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).

If You Weren't So Perfectplay in the dock

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The Dillinger Escape Plan was an American mathcore band formed in 1997 in Morris Plains, New Jersey, evolving from the hardcore band Arcane. Founded and anchored throughout by guitarist Ben Weinman, the group fused hardcore intensity, technical metal precision and jarring time changes across landmark releases including Calculating Infinity (1999), Miss Machine (2004), Ire Works (2007), One of Us Is the Killer (2013) and Dissociation (2016). After original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis departed, Greg Puciato fronted the band from 2001 until its disbandment in December 2017. The band reunited in 2023 to mark the 25th anniversary of their debut.

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Zu are an Italian avant-jazz/noise-metal trio formed in Ostia near Rome in 1997, built on the unconventional lineup of Luca T. Mai's baritone saxophone, Massimo Pupillo's bass and Jacopo Battaglia's drums. Their heaviest album, Carboniferous (2009), was their first release for Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings. It features guest appearances by Mike Patton on vocals (notably on "Soulympics") and King Buzzo (Buzz Osborne) of the Melvins on guitar for "Chthonian."

Soulympics (with Mike Patton)play in the dock

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The Flying Luttenbachers are an American instrumental noise/avant-garde band formed in Chicago in 1991 and led throughout by composer-drummer Weasel Walter, who coined 'brutal prog' for their aggressively dissonant fusion of free jazz, no wave, punk and death metal. Over 20-plus albums and a rotating cast of 40+ Chicago-improv and avant players, they've morphed from punk-jazz trio to industrial sound-collage to a ferocious, hyper-technical metal-prog engine. The band dissolved in 2007 and reformed in 2017, remaining an uncompromising touchstone of extreme instrumental music.

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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Clown Core is an anonymous, clown-masked American experimental duo whose members are widely speculated (though never officially confirmed) to be drummer Louis Cole of Knower and saxophonist Sam Gendel. Their self-released records — Clown Core (2010), Toilet (2018), Van (2020), 1234 (2021) and Live (2024) — cram grindcore, free jazz, noise and extreme metal into songs that rarely run past two minutes, with videos staged in absurdist locations. The project has an album entry on Metal Archives, making it chart-eligible as metal-adjacent.