Uulliata Digir

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.

Dola are a Polish avant-garde black metal trio formed in Poznań in 2018 and now based in Toruń. Their sound couples a dissonant, aggressive black-metal backbone with ritual ambient, sludge/post-metal heaviness and pronounced jazz elements, the latter carried by Maras's trumpet. Recent album 'Tabernakulum' (2024, Piranha Music) swings between brutal dissonance and the atmospheric avant-garde passages that define the band.

Wyrmwoods is a one-man experimental/atmospheric black metal project from Oulu, Finland, active since 2014 under the alias Nuurag-Vaarn and signed to Inverse Records. Its four full-lengths (Earth Made Flesh, 2017; Spirit & Teeth, 2019; Gamma, 2020; No Sun Nor Moon, 2022) fold progressive rock, doom, jazz saxophone and ambient texture into a black metal core, with Gamma marking a deliberate turn from a chaotic, lo-fi approach toward more progressive, Opeth-indebted songwriting.

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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Pan.Thy.Monium was a Swedish avant-garde death metal band active from 1990 to 1996, formed and led by Dan Swanö (as Day DiSyraah) with members drawn from his other project Edge of Sanity. Their signature was the baritone saxophone of Dag Swanö laid over murky, progressive death metal alongside organ and mystical synths, with vocals treated as a wordless instrument rather than carrying lyrics. Issued through Osmose Productions and later Relapse, their small discography is a touchstone for saxophone-driven experimental death metal.

Norwegian avant-garde metal band formed in Oslo in 2000 by Carl-Michael Eide (Czral), who considered it a continuation of his earlier band Ved Buens Ende. Their angular, dissonant sound folds jazz and death-metal elements into an idiosyncratic avant-rock framework across albums like 'Carheart' (2003) and 'The Black Flux' (2008, Season of Mist). The band disbanded in 2018.

GuilThee is a cultic Hungarian eclectic-metal band from Veszprém, founded in June 2006 by multi-instrumentalist Nagaarum (Gábor Tóth), evolving from thrash/groove/death metal into experimental/progressive metal. Their sound folds in tenor saxophone via longtime member Mr Match, synth-carpet atmospheres, and black-metal/dark-ambient textures across albums including Lustration (2009), Homunculus Paradoxon (2011), Szemantikai háromszögek (2012) and Eklektika (2013).

Venomous Echoes is the solo dissonant black/death metal project of Ohio multi-instrumentalist Ben Vanweelden, threading cosmic-horror and body-dysmorphia narrative concepts through blast-driven black-death chaos punctuated by dark jazz saxophone and synth interludes. Across three full-lengths — most recently Dysmor (I, Voidhanger, 2025) — the project builds sprawling, epic-length tracks that pair Lovecraft/Cronenberg-inflected horror themes with technical, atmospheric extremity. It sits in the current wave of one-person avant-death/black projects released through boutique labels like I, Voidhanger, Jaibaná, and Vargheist.

Epectase is a Paris duo that folds frantic tremolo-picked black metal into long-form suites of 70s prog, jazz-tinged interludes, and hazy krautrock electronics, sliding between shrieks, operatic cleans, and meditative ambient passages within a single track. Since forming in 2018, multi-instrumentalist Vague and vocalist Avitus have released a steady run of albums and EPs on I, Voidhanger Records and Frozen Records, sitting among the more overtly progressive-rock-indebted corners of the French avant-black underground.

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Xenoch is a solo New York City black-metal project stacking bardo-metal dissonance against chamber music, modern classical, and free-jazz textures. 2023's 'poison lotus corpse pearl' pairs blackened death riffing with classical and free-jazz Bandcamp tags across five sprawling 'sign' movements, while 2026's 'Shedding Broken Shells like Feathers' pushes further into electroacoustic, glitch, and xenharmonic/microtonal territory. Dense, philosophical liner notes about the 'abolition of the temporal dimension' frame the project as bedroom avant-garde black metal rather than a full band.

sign v: …the night will never sleepplay in the dock

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