Oxiplegatz

Void is a UK avant-garde/fringe metal project active since 1999, built around founding member and guitarist/vocalist Matt Jarman. Press consistently bills the band as 'avant-garde metal pioneers,' fusing black, death and industrial metal with noise, electronica and post-metal songwriting, citing touchstones from Dødheimsgard and Emperor to Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares. The current lineup grew directly out of Dødheimsgard's 2019 'Void Dancers' tour, and features musicians who also play in Dødheimsgard and Doedsmaghird. Their fourth album, Jadjow (2023, Brucia Records), was co-written by that touring lineup.

Atrox is a long-running Norwegian avant-garde metal band from Trondheim (formed 1988, debut album 1997) that brands its sound 'schizo/psycho metal' — experimental, progressive metal built on sharp contrasts of light and dark, unorthodox structures, and intense, bizarre vocals. Rooted in an atmospheric death/doom origin, later albums on Season of Mist (Contentum, Terrestrials, Binocular, Monocle) push toward melodic yet unpredictable, keyboard-and-sample-textured territory in the vein of Arcturus and Manes. The band's guitar core (viNd and Rune Sørgård) has anchored it since 1997.

Atrorum is a two-person avant-garde/progressive black metal project from Munich, Germany, formed in 1998 by vatroS (guitars, bass, clean vocals, programming) and umbrA (vocals, keyboards, programming). Across three albums on Apathia Records — most notably 2015's Structurae — the band folds symphonic black and death metal into gothic organ, choir, cabaret, funeral-doom, jazz, and industrial-electronic passages, alternating harsh and clean vocals delivered in French, German, and English.

Sceptocrypt is a Maltese extreme metal project founded in 1992 in Tarxien by Malcolm 'Gool' Callus, active until 1999 and revived from 2014 (now based in London). Billing itself 'Extreme Music Research,' the band hybridizes death, doom and black metal with baroque classical structure — the 1997 track 'Oratorio Mortem' merges chordal classical passages and acoustic interludes with violin and soprano vocals before erupting into metal — and its 2023-24 comeback singles lean into neo-folk, flamenco, and theatrical concept work (2024's 'The Wards Outside' is built around Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty).

Voidstar Nocturnal is a progressive blackened death metal trio from Heredia, Costa Rica, formed in 2023 by musicians from Corpse Garden, Deiphago and Advent of Bedlank-adjacent scenes, evolving directly out of Corpse Garden. Guitarist Fabian Salas, bassist Kevin Moran, and drummer/synth player Erick Mejía Arguedas, joined by guest vocalist Roy Zumbado Cognuchz (TŴR, Advent of Bedlam), recorded the debut LP "Nexus Teleport Fracture" (Godz ov War Productions, 2026) live over three days at Colin Marston's Menegroth Studios in New York with no edits, triggers, or overdubs. Critics describe a surreal, psychedelic fusion of dissonant death/black metal with electro-industrial synths, post-punk/darkwave atmosphere, and a cosmic sci-fi/occult concept.

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DSKNT is a shadowy Swiss black/death metal project from Sion, Valais, formed in 2013 as the 'audial subdivision' of the DSKNT Industry recording studio and led by the presumed one-person mastermind Asknt. Since December 2016 vocals have been handled by Antiversum's singer, and the band's two albums for Sentient Ruin Laboratories — PhSPHR Entropy (2017) and Vacuum γ-Noise Transition (2021) — fuse dissonant, complex riffing with harsh noise and a slow, hypnotic drumming approach built around themes of cosmic void and entropy.

Ensoph is an Italian avant-garde gothic/industrial metal project from Venice, active from 1997 (emerging from the prog-doom band Endaymynion) into the 2010s and signed at various points to Cruz del Sur Music. Their name, Hebrew for 'infinity,' signals the band's abiding interest in esotericism, Kabbalah and apocalyptic theology, filtered through a sound that moved from dense avant-garde gothic metal on early records toward techno/industrial-driven arrangements by 2009's Rex Mundi X-Ile. Critics likened aspects of their sound to The Kovenant and Marilyn Manson, though the arrangements were often described as 'busy' to the point of overcrowded.

Gardenjia is a Brindisi, Italy act formed in 2010 that started in djent/experimental territory before drifting into cinematic, atonal experimental black metal steeped in film and anime scores; 2018's Machina Dei explicitly quotes Ghost in the Shell and reworks Franz Liszt. Built around Raffaele Galasso with Giuseppe Miglietta and Antonio Martire, the trio remains unsigned and self-releases via Bandcamp.

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Saprovore is the solo industrial black/death metal project of an Italian musician also known for the band Strigiform, released through I, Voidhanger Records. His album 'Numinous Abditory Deflagration' (2026) is described by the artist as exploring 'cosmic emptiness' with a more refined, symphonic-leaning songwriting approach than his debut 'Unuttered Aporetic Omen.' Cited influences include Gnaw Their Tongues, Jute Gyte, Blut Aus Nord, and Thantifaxath (stated influences, not collaborations).

Chryst is the solo, present-day moniker of Christof Niederwieser, who founded the Austrian avant-garde black metal band Korova in Innsbruck in 1990, continued it as Korovakill from 2000, then released the sole Chryst album PhantasmaChronica (2011). Niederwieser also sang on Angizia's first two studio albums.