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Lamashtu are a Gothenburg, Sweden act founded in 2015 by Sandra Mattsson, who writes the lyrics and plays bass, built around the recurring persona of the band's Mesopotamian-demon namesake and a rotating cast of member-'demons.' Their sound — self-described as symphonic doom metal and sung in Swedish — has spanned the concept album 'Fallna Själar' (2016, on the seven cardinal sins) through 'Tro' and 'Längtan,' and most recently a multi-chapter audio/novel hybrid, 'The Story of Eli.'

Chilean avant-garde/post-black metal band from the Region Metropolitana (Santiago), formed 2008. Blends post-black metal with industrial elements, melodic post-rock, and operatic Spanish-language vocal delivery reminiscent of Arcturus. Discography includes "Rerum Imaginaria" (2012), "Argonautas", and "La Casa de los Siete Espejos" (2024, inspired by a legendary Valparaiso brothel and Sergio Larrain's photography).

Nomicon was a Helsinki act led by vocalist/bassist Tommi Launonen (Ceasar), moving from an early death/thrash sound into symphonic, atmospheric black metal by the 2001 album Halla, drawing comparisons to The Kovenant's Nexus Polaris but 'enriched with more deeply doomy atmospherics.' The band drew on a deep bench of Finnish extreme-metal talent, including guitarist Roope Latvala (later Children of Bodom), rhythm guitarist Miika Niemela (Shape of Despair), female vocalist Tanya Kemppainen (Lullacry), and drummer Yka 'Agathon' (Barathrum). A Metal Archives review characterizes Halla's keyboard-led sound as a 'misanthropic baroque celebration' anchored by 'apocalyptic witch-esque rasps.'

Grandmother Is Dead is a Czech one-man project from Prague, active since 1996, built entirely around Josef Pernikl playing and recording all instruments in his home studio as a hobby release he doesn't sell for profit. Its self-described 'Scenic Doom' style pairs doom metal with ambient, industrial and theatrical passages, and each album pursues a grim historical theme — its first release in 1997 was inspired by the Sobibor concentration camp, followed by The Camp (2006) and the atomic-bomb-themed Trust Christ Today (2009) — often layered with recorded witness testimony. Pernikl has also played guitar in the thrash band Lobotomia.

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.

Porta Nigra is a German avant-garde black metal band founded in Koblenz in 2010 by Gilles deRais (guitars, bass) and drummer/vocalist O., who recorded the first two albums as a duo before expanding to a full band. Their concept records — Fin de Siècle (2012), Kaiserschnitt (2015), Schöpfungswut (2020) and Weltende (2023), the last inspired by World War I — move between straightforward black metal fury and more psychedelic, spoken-word-laced detours, released through Soulseller Records. Guitarist Gilles deRais has described the project as a way of channeling 'old spirits' through the music.

Anareta is a six-piece orchestral/blackened doom metal band from New Orleans, formed in 2018 around a chamber trio of violin, viola and cello alongside conventional metal instrumentation. Their self-released 2023 debut Fear Not pairs Sarah Jacques' harsh, black/sludge-inflected screams with cinematic string arrangements, earning praise for fusing classical chamber writing with crushing doom riffing. Note: this is the New Orleans band and its 2023 album Fear Not — not the same-titled Horrendous death metal album.

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A New York art-world side project active from 2000-2003, pairing visual artist Rita Ackermann with Gang Gang Dance's Lizzi Bougatsos in a ritualistic, blood-and-paganism-themed 'art + metal' hybrid — chant-like incantations and wordless vocal panting over heavy, dirge-paced guitar/bass, with Orthrelm's Mick Barr guesting on guitar for Labia Minora. Functioned as much as a performance-art and visual-art collective as a band, releasing on Captain Trip and, posthumously, Locust Music.

Nightly Gale are a Polish 'suicidal'/experimental doom metal band from Zabrze, formed in January 1996 and still releasing as of their 2008 album Imprint. Founder Slawek Pyrzyk's slow, melancholic doom foundation has been layered over the years with second-vocalist Waldemar Sagan's black metal screams and, notably, live saxophone passages that reviewers single out as an unusually organic touch for the genre. Their debut ...and Jesus Wept (2001) came out on Pagan Records, and Imprint (2008) pushed the format further into a single continuous 70-minute piece.

A Burlington, Vermont project that began as epic doom metal (lyrics about cartoons and archaeology) before pivoting into what it now calls 'Doom Cabaret' — metal-influenced piano ballads that the band itself likens to 'Voltaire after listening to Candlemass and bingewatching old cartoons.' The Johnsonian Demos blends doom/thrash/power metal roots with free improvisation and dark ambient textures, landing somewhere between symphonic doom and cabaret songcraft.