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Painkiller (stylized PainKiller) is an avant-garde trio formed in 1991 by John Zorn (saxophone), Bill Laswell (bass) and Mick Harris (drums), the latter fresh from grindcore pioneers Napalm Death. Their early records Guts of a Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992) fused blast-beat grindcore with free jazz, while the 1994 double album Execution Ground steered the group toward dub and ambient textures. After Harris left in 1995 to focus on electronic music, Zorn and Laswell continued Painkiller with drummers including Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, and the original trio reunited in 2024 with Harris on electronics.

Cleric is a Philadelphia avant-metal band formed in 2003, fusing grindcore, doom, mathcore and free-jazz-informed improvisation into dense, extended compositions built on Matt Hollenberg's mathy, technical guitar work. The band sits squarely in John Zorn's orbit: they're signed to Web of Mimicry (Trey Spruance's label), released Chokhma as part of Zorn's Tzadik box set The Book Beri'ah, and had Zorn himself guest on alto saxophone on Retrocausal's closer 'Grey Lodge' — with Mick Barr also guesting on guitar on the same record. Hollenberg additionally plays guitar in Secret Chiefs 3's UR lineup, giving Cleric a direct personnel tie into that avant-garde ecosystem beyond stylistic kinship.

An Oakland art-thrash unit fusing King Crimson-style tempo shifts and free-jazz saxophone skronk with Slayer-speed riffing, math-rock structure, and post-punk snarl. Signed to Crucial Blast for City of Dis (2005), critics placed them alongside Naked City and Yakuza for pushing metal and jazz into the same collapsing structure.

The Flying Luttenbachers are an American instrumental noise/avant-garde band formed in Chicago in 1991 and led throughout by composer-drummer Weasel Walter, who coined 'brutal prog' for their aggressively dissonant fusion of free jazz, no wave, punk and death metal. Over 20-plus albums and a rotating cast of 40+ Chicago-improv and avant players, they've morphed from punk-jazz trio to industrial sound-collage to a ferocious, hyper-technical metal-prog engine. The band dissolved in 2007 and reformed in 2017, remaining an uncompromising touchstone of extreme instrumental music.

Brain Tentacles is a Chicago trio formed in 2013: Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, Bloodiest) on saxophone, electric piano, synth and voice; Dave Witte (Discordance Axis, Municipal Waste) on drums; and Aaron Dallison (Keelhaul) on bass and synth. Their 2016 self-titled debut (Relapse Records) swings between 'mathy chaos' and 'juddering grooves,' drawing direct comparisons to John Zorn's Naked City, with a guest vocal spot from Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), production by Sanford Parker, and cover art by Jef Whitehead (Leviathan).

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Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant is the avant-garde jazz vehicle of Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, active since 1997 and built on the idea of a compositional jazz trio that also wields rock's power chords — AllMusic called the result "moody jazz with convulsive rock." The group debuted with Debutantes & Centipedes (1998, Buzz Records) featuring guitarist Adam Levy and drummer Kenny Wollesen, then re-emerged on Ipecac with Sister Phantom Owl Fish (2004) in a new lineup with guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Ches Smith. That trio returned on Séances (2022, Pyroclastic Records), expanded by the chamber quartet Folie à Quatre — including Sleepytime Gorilla Museum violinist Carla Kihlstedt — for music inspired by the 18th-century French Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard.

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A Northern California one-man band whose 'Never Was' (2024) and 'Shriek' (Lou Kelly...and Friends) LPs bounce between jazzcore, mathcore, grindcore, crust punk and harsh-noise-wall under a self-described 'Progressive-Violence-Jazz' banner, all written, performed and produced solo. The 'Shriek' record began as a drunken online invitation for strangers to sing over Kelly's instrumentals and grew into a 14-track collaborative curio on the tiny label THE HILLS ARE DEAD Records. Listeners have likened the results to a heavier Mr. Bungle/Mike Patton side-project, though that is a stylistic comparison only — no verified personal connection exists.

Lye by Mistake were an instrumentally virtuosic experimental metal band from St. Louis, Missouri, active 2004-2011, who moved from vocal mathcore on their 2006 debut Arrangements for Fulminating Vective to fully instrumental jazz-fusion metal on 2009's Fea Jur after vocalist Tony Saputo's 2008 departure. Reviewers likened their guitar work to jazz-fusion players like Pat Metheny and Al Di Meola grafted onto a Meshuggah-indebted metal chassis. They toured alongside mathcore-scene peers including Psyopus, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, Cattle Decapitation, and Arsonists Get All the Girls.

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Hunab Ku was a Seattle avant-garde metal act built around vocalist Mike Gilmore, guitarist Luke Jaeger (ex-Sleep Terror, joined 2008 replacing founding guitarist Dan Hagerty), bassist Matt Finn, and drummer Mark Villano. Their 2007 debut "The Gaze Inward" (Black Sheep Records) was reviewed as chaotic mathcore-indebted avant metal, drawing explicit critical comparisons to Dillinger Escape Plan, Cephalic Carnage, and Fantomas, with vocals ranging from screams to croons and moans. IMPORTANT DISAMBIGUATION: this is distinct from an unrelated Costa Rican black metal band of the same name (founded 2016 by Lord Eythraz) and a dark-ambient project — the Seattle act is the one matching the chart description and reviews cited here.

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Black Heart Sutra is a New York experimental/mathcore project centered on composer-violinist Earl Maneein (SEVEN)SUNS) and drummer Kenny Grohowski (Imperial Triumphant, Secret Chiefs 3, frequent John Zorn collaborator), expanded on record with guest vocalists including Jessica Pimentel. Their 2017 debut album "Zersetzung" (Still Water Recordings) mixes progressive-jazz harmony with mathcore's chaotic, Locust-like structural shifts.

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