Mastery

Shining is a Norwegian band formed in Oslo in 1999 by saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Jørgen Munkeby (not to be confused with the Swedish black-metal band Shining led by Niklas Kvarforth). Starting life as an acoustic jazz quartet influenced by Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, they mutated across the 2000s into extreme avant-garde metal, coining the term 'blackjazz' with their 2010 album of that name — a Frankenstein blend of free jazz, blackened industrial metal, growled vocals and raw electronic noise that won the 2011 Spellemannspris. Munkeby is a prolific session player, contributing saxophone (most prominently on 'Moon') to Devin Townsend's Casualties of Cool.

The Madness and the Damage Doneplay in the dock

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Inquisitor were a Vilnius, Lithuania avant-garde black metal band active 2002-2016, best known for the concept album The Quantum Theory of Id (2010), a four-part metaphysical narrative pairing harsh black-metal riffing with jazzy/spooky acoustic piano and disjointed, technical song structures. A 2014 follow-up, Clinamen | Episteme, continued in the same 'progressive, complex and extremely dynamic blackened metal' vein. They are a niche entry in the Lithuanian black metal underground with no documented ties to other EMMA atlas acts.

Aenaon is a Greek avant-garde/progressive black metal band from Ioannina, formed in 2005 and signed to Agonia Records. Mastermind Achilleas C. (also of Varathron and Katavasia) leads the band with drummer Haris (Varathron), vocalist Astrous (Katavasia) and saxophonist Orestis Zyrinis, whose horn work gives their dark, noir-tinged black metal a distinctive jazz-inflected edge, as heard on 2022's 'Mnemosyne.'

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Tabernacle ov Thee Flesh is a Brazilian avant-garde/experimental black metal project from Joinville, released via Ultra Gash Records, featuring Naboth E. Coli (vocals, keyboards), L. Borgia Rossetti (guitar, also of Esmectatons and Os Legais) and Leal Barroso (drums, also of Esmectatons and Zombie Cookbook). Their sole album Versículos de Autoflagelo (2021) comprises 25 short tracks forming one continuous suite steeped in free improvisation, jazz and noise traditions.

Nirrti is a solo psychedelic black metal project based in Orlová, Czechia, signed to Depressive Illusions Records. The project's music has been described as eerie, dissonant, and 'progressive black metal played through the lens of psychedelics and jazz,' aiming to convey darkness, uncertainty, and glimpses of other dimensions rather than adhering to traditional black metal norms. Releases include 'Psychonautix' (2022), 'Palindromos' (2023), and 'Cyberpsychosis' (2024), the latter continuing the project's cyber/psychedelic conceptual throughline.

Arkheth is the long-running (2001-present) Australian project of Tyrone 'Tyraenos' Kostitch, now a one-man vehicle for symphonic-turned-experimental black metal after growing out of the Orange, NSW band Eternal Dark. Its 2018 high point, 12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew, folds saxophonist Glen Wholohan's honking, Contortions-indebted jazz lines into black-metal songwriting critics have dubbed 'an inverted Shining' -- black metal wading into jazz rather than the reverse. It is one of the more distinctive jazz/black-metal hybrids operating outside the Norwegian axis the label comparison implies.

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Kexelür is a Santiago, Chile trio formed around 2021 playing atmospheric, dissonant, and psychedelic black metal built around free improvisation. Their releases are billed as largely improvised live sessions, with reviewers noting 'jazz fusion inspired soloing/leads' layered over the black metal foundation. The band communicates only through single-letter pseudonyms (Λ., V., J.), with Λ. also running the solo project Fatalys (not in the E.M.M.A. atlas).

Vestigios del enajenado por la antracitaplay in the dockcompare profiles →

Neon Scaffold is a Russian avant-garde/blackened metal project from Sergiyev Posad, Moscow Oblast, formed in 2018 by musicians drawn from Cage of Creation, Zatemno, and Licho. Their sound mixes jazz-inflected walking bass and saxophone with dissonant, folk-rooted black metal riffing; their 2025 album Noir (Pest Productions) followed a 2020 split, Konflikt, with Polish band Gruzja.

Formed in 1991 by Alexander Nordgaren and Svein Egil Hatlevik, Fleurety began as a conventional Norwegian black metal band before radically expanding its palette: Min Tid Skal Komme (1995) folded in atonal harmonics and folk elements, and Department of Apocalyptic Affairs (2000) - produced by Ulver's Kristoffer Rygg - spans metal, jazz, trip-hop and electronica. Both records leaned heavily on the Norwegian avant-garde scene for guest performers, pulling in Mayhem's Hellhammer and Maniac, Ulver's Rygg (as vocalist "G. Playa") and Tore Ylwizaker on programming, Arcturus/Winds' Steinar "Sverd" Johnsen, and Borknagar's Knut Magne Valle; a later 2009 EP brought in Mayhem's Hellhammer and Necrobutcher again alongside Thorr's Hammer vocalist Runhild Gammelsæter.

Nefarious Mash is the solo vehicle of Grenoble-based contemporary-classical composer Eddy Jaber, founded in late 2021 to bridge concert-hall composition and extreme metal. Debut LP In Memory of Your Hopes (2022, reissued 2024 on Wormholedeath) builds dense 'harmonic cathedrals' of dissonant black metal, threading in jazz-derived harmony, polyrhythmic surprises and theatrically flexible vocal delivery across nine long-form tracks.

In Front of the Mirrorplay in the dock

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