Spintria

Sigihl is a drone/doom/avant-garde metal act from the Silesian Voivodeship, Poland, formed in 2012, describing themselves as 'drone jazz from the hellyard.' Their sole full release, Trauermärsche (and a tango upon the world's grave) (2014, Arachnophobia Records), fuses sludge, doom, drone and black metal with saxophone, funereal atmosphere, and tango-inflected song titles.

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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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.

Trelldom is Norwegian black metal vocalist Gaahl's (Kristian Eivind Espedal) longest-running band, founded in Sunnfjord in 1992 and debuting with 'Til Evighet' in 1995. After a long hiatus the band returned with 2024's '...by the Shadows...', a stylistic departure that pulls in jazz saxophonist Kjetil Møster to push the band's traditional black metal into dissonant, avant-garde and drone-rock territory.

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An anonymous Dallas/Fort Worth project that splices black-metal roots into avant-chamber, modern-classical, and jazz-fusion territory, pulling as much from Gubaidulina and Shostakovich as from extreme metal. No Clean Singing calls it 'otherworldly noisey chaos wrapped in layer upon layer of stark dissonance,' built from string arrangements, spoken poetry, and choral passages rather than riffs. Its splits and full-lengths weave a recurring sci-fi/horror concept universe across releases.

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Prague's Voluptas channel 90s Norwegian avant-black (Ved Buens Ende, Dodheimsgard, Enslaved) through psychedelia, free jazz and drone-rock, with a recurring guest saxophonist smearing Alban Berg-inspired lines across the riffs. Their debut EP Ved Rums Ende (2016) closed out a punkier chapter before Towards the Great White Nothing (2020) and the guest-cello-and-sax Where Celestial Bodies Guide Not (2025) pushed further into dynamic, atmospheric territory. The band's name is a direct nod to Ved Buens Ende.

Plague Organ is a Dutch guitar-less avant-garde black/death metal duo of drummer Rene Aquarius (Dead Neanderthals, Cryptae, Imperial Cult) and recording engineer Marlon Wolterink (bass, synths), built entirely from bass, drums, and synthesizer. Their 2020 debut Orphan on Sentient Ruin Laboratories is a single 40-minute piece fusing free-form jazz, drone, dark ambient, kraut, and ritualistic black/death metal into what CVLT Nation called a 'suffocating instrumental ambient fractal.' Aquarius is a highly prolific Dutch underground drummer with a sprawling collaborative discography, though no direct tie to an existing E.M.M.A. atlas act was found.

Kilter is a Brooklyn instrumental jazz-metal trio built around bassist/producer Laurent David, saxophonist Ed Rosenberg III, and Imperial Triumphant drummer Kenny Grohowski. Their records fuse free-jazz horn improvisation with sludge, doom, blast beats and dark ambient, most extremely on 2026's 'Ten Billion Years / Ten', built by recording ten-minute sketches and time-stretching them to forty. It sits at the NYC intersection of avant-jazz and extreme metal that also produced Imperial Triumphant, Secret Chiefs 3 and Titan to Tachyons, all sharing Grohowski behind the kit.

Epistasis is a New York-based experimental black metal quartet distinguished by Amy Mills' vocals and trumpet, splicing modern-classical dissonance (cited influences: Bartok, Ligeti, Part) and avant-jazz color into abrasive, atmospheric black metal. Their 2014 Crucial Blast album 'Light Through Dead Glass' was engineered by Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans) and drew press comparisons to Ved Buens Ende and Virus for its dissonant, jagged songwriting. Drummer Alex Cohen also plays in Pyrrhon and Malignancy, and Mills has guested on trumpet for Castevet and Psalm Zero — none of which are in the current atlas.

Avant-garde metal sextet from Poznań, Poland, founded in 2019 by guitarist Marcin Tuliszkiewicz and drummer Krzysztof Kulis. Their self-titled debut (10 January 2025) fuses black/death metal harshness with dark jazz, doomy drone and trumpet (Magdalena Andrys), driven by dual vocals between clean singer Julita Dąbrowska and growler Michał Sosnowski.