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Wyrmwoods

Finland · formed 2014 · last active 2022

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.

SCORE PROFILE

JazzyBalkanHardcoreSurfBarbershopDeathBlackTechnicalGlitchTheatricalFolkDoomDroneShoegazeAmbient8-bit
Jazzy3
Balkan0
Hardcore0
Surf0
Barbershop0
Death1
Black6
Technical4
Glitch0
Theatrical0
Folk0
Doom3
Drone1
Shoegaze0
Ambient4
8-bit0

Accent numbers counted towards the index. Hover an axis — or hold it on a phone — for what it means.

WHY THOSE SCORES

  • Jazzy 3Coverage describes the project blending 'progressive rock, doom, ambient and jazz,' with saxophone featured in many songs - https://themetalrobot.com/news/experimental-finnish-black-metal-band-wyrmwoods-release-subterrane
  • Black 6Metal Robot and Bandcamp tag the project atmospheric/experimental black metal, with black metal as its base even as later albums add progressive elements - https://themetalrobot.com/news/experimental-finnish-black-metal-band-wyrmwoods-release-subterrane
  • Technical 4Gamma (2020) moves toward Opeth-influenced progressive songwriting per the artist's own description - https://themetalrobot.com/news/experimental-finnish-black-metal-band-wyrmwoods-release-subterrane
  • Doom 3Sole member also runs the avant-doom band Starboard and folds doom elements into Wyrmwoods per Bandcamp bio - https://wyrmwoods.bandcamp.com/album/gamma
  • Ambient 4Bandcamp tags list 'atmospheric black metal' alongside ambient-leaning progressive/avant-garde metal descriptors - https://wyrmwoods.bandcamp.com/album/gamma

MEMBERS

  • Nuurag-Vaarn [M.Ö.]all instruments, vocals

FURTHER LISTENING

Nearest score profiles in the atlas.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 11
    Dola
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  • UnaffiliatedEI 9
    Altari
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    Altari is an Icelandic black metal band whose debut album Kröflueldar, released via Svart Records in April 2023, took roughly nine years to complete. The record folds clean, melodic guitar leads and influences from Blue Öyster Cult, Killing Joke and Interpol into a black metal foundation, co-produced by Stephen Lockhart (aka Wann), a central engineer/producer figure in Reykjavík's black metal scene.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 7
    Ebonillumini
    BlackTechnicalAmbient

    Ebonillumini is a female-fronted avant-garde/gothic black metal project from London, founded in 2008 by Meads of Asphodel guitarist James Tait ('The Monk Marshall') alongside vocalist Christina Poupoutsi ('The Maiden'). Across The Ebon Channel (2008), Pacificum (2013) and Arktos (2015) the band frames each record as a concept-driven geographic voyage, pairing Poupoutsi's operatic, 'musky' clean vocals against Tait's harsh growls, with reviewers noting jazz-inflected song structures, neo-classical/symphonic orchestration and black-metal-rooted riffing shading into psychedelia and Viking-metal tropes. Production has drawn criticism for burying the heavier material under brickwalled mastering and overlong running times.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 9
    Kexelür
    BlackTechnicalJazzy

    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).

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  • Blackgaze / avant-blackEI 13
    Epectase
    BlackTechnicalAmbient

    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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  • UnaffiliatedEI 9
    Murmur
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    Chicago's Murmur mutate black metal's frost into something stranger, threading Moog synths, jazz-inflected dissonance, and Midwest punk urgency through shrieked, tremolo-driven songwriting. Where peers double down on cold atmosphere, Murmur's albums (2010's Mainlining the Lugubrious, its 2014 self-titled follow-up) reach for space-rock sprawl and noise-rock grit instead. The result sits closer to post-black-metal's outer edges than to any orthodox scene.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 10
    Omega Centauri
    BlackAmbientDoom

    Omega Centauri is a UK-based atmospheric black metal project built around multi-instrumentalist Tom Vallely, blending glacial tremolo-riff black metal with dark ambient textures, doom-paced passages, and cinematic post-rock swells. Recorded piecemeal between 2006 and 2011, debut Universum Infinitum favors slow-burn atmosphere and philosophical/theological themes over aggression. The project sits in the same cold-and-spacious atmospheric black metal lineage as labelmates on Duplicate Records.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 15
    Voluptas
    BlackAmbientJazzy

    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.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 9
    Epistasis
    BlackTechnicalJazzy

    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.

  • UnaffiliatedEI 8
    Towards Rusted Soil
    BlackAmbient

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