Macabre

Sepultura is a Brazilian metal band formed in Belo Horizonte in 1984 by brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, and the most internationally successful heavy metal act to emerge from Brazil. Their late-1980s records helped codify a raw strain of thrash and death metal before Chaos A.D. (1993) and Roots (1996) pivoted the band toward a percussive groove metal laced with Brazilian tribal rhythms and indigenous instrumentation. Max Cavalera's 1996 departure fractured the classic lineup, but guitarist Andreas Kisser and bassist Paulo Jr. carried the band forward with American vocalist Derrick Green from 1997 onward.

Roots Bloody Rootsplay in the dock

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Die Apokalyptischen Reiter are a long-running Weimar, Germany act (formed 1995) whose sound resists easy categorization, fusing melodic death metal, folk metal, power/symphonic metal and Neue Deutsche Härte with punk energy and, in later albums, jazz and ambient touches. Their 2017 album 'Der Rote Reiter' was recorded and released entirely in German, marking a deliberate turn toward their home-language folk-metal identity. The band has toured internationally for three decades and remains active on Nuclear Blast/The End Records.

Stolen Babies are an American experimental/avant-garde rock band formed in California in 2001, built around Dominique Lenore Persi's accordion and theatrical vocals in a 'dark cabaret' meets prog-metal frame. Twin brothers Rani and Gil Sharone anchor the rhythm section; influences include Oingo Boingo, Mr. Bungle and Fishbone. They released There Be Squabbles Ahead (2006) via No Comment/The End Records.

Divina Enema is a Belarusian avant-garde/progressive metal act from Minsk, founded in 1998 with an explicit goal of 'theatrical extravaganza.' Records like 'Under Phoenix Phenomenon' (2003) layer gothic, death and black metal against folk and electronic detours, with guest violin, cello and tenor sax dressing up concept-album narratives about a man haunted by inner voices. It is a lesser-known post-Soviet entry in the theatrical/symphonic-adjacent avant-metal lineage.

A Handful of Hayplay in the dock

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God of Shamisen is a Santa Cruz, California band formed in late 2004 and led by Tsugaru-shamisen player Kevin Kmetz, billed as the world's first rock band to combine metal, funk, and progressive rock with the Tsugaru-shamisen, a fretless lute from Northern Japan. Its lineup features Kevin Kmetz (shamisen), Lee Smith (drums), Karl Schnaitter (guitar), and Mark Thornton (bass). The band shares members with experimental band Estradasphere: drummer Lee Smith moved to Santa Cruz in 2004 to join Estradasphere as their permanent drummer, and Kmetz also worked with the group. Their second album, Smoke Monster Attack (2010), was produced by Billy Anderson and Mark Thornton.

System of a Down are an Armenian-American alternative-metal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1994, whose sound welds thrash aggression to Armenian folk melodies, abrupt tempo shifts and Serj Tankian's operatic, politically charged vocals. Multi-platinum records like Toxicity (2001) and the Mezmerize/Hypnotize pair made them one of the era's biggest metal acts. In 2008 Tankian co-wrote and traded vocals with Mike Patton on 'Bird's Eye' for the Body of Lies soundtrack.

Zakas is an American avant-garde/self-described 'world metal' band from Las Vegas, Nevada, active from 1998 with releases into the 2000s and a 2025 single revival, built around a rotating cast of session musicians rather than a fixed lineup. Their sound splices Entombed-style heavy death-metal guitar tone with funk slap bass, saxophone, gothic keyboards, sitar, flute, bongos, and shifting vocal styles (deep, distorted, female, rapped).

Soulfly is an American metal band formed in Phoenix, Arizona in 1997 by vocalist/guitarist Max Cavalera after he left Sepultura, the Brazilian band he had co-founded with his brother Igor in 1984. The group fuses groove, thrash and death metal with tribal, Brazilian and world-music elements, an outgrowth of the rhythmic experiments Cavalera began on Sepultura's Roots. Long anchored by the Cavalera family, the band has been a durable vehicle for Max's riff-driven, spiritually themed heavy metal across more than a dozen albums, from the nu-metal-adjacent self-titled debut (1998) through Chama (2025).

Prophecyplay in the dock

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Untu is the metal incarnation of Gamelan Suara Baru, a Javanese gamelan collective founded in Los Angeles in 2014 by composer Sean Hayward that later relocated its performing core to Surakarta/Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Its 2019 debut album 'Rats of Oran,' based on Albert Camus' 'La Peste,' fused a death-metal band with a full traditional gamelan ensemble rather than using gamelan as mere texture.

Flummox is a genre-fluid experimental rock band formed in 2012 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, by Alyson Blake Dellinger and Drew Jones, blending sludge, doom, swing, bluegrass, and hardcore within elaborately theatrical live shows. The band is best known for comedic stage bits, including an audience-favorite sequence where Dellinger transforms into an opossum during the song 'Oh, Possum.' Their sixth album, Southern Progress, was released in April 2025 on Needlejuice Records, with vocals tracked at Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner's Nashville studio.

Always Something Going Downplay in the dock

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