Avant-garde Metal

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    Azure Emote - Cryptic Aura (2025)

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    Delivering one of the craftiest and weirdest Death Metal releases of 2025, today we have Azure Emote with their fourth full-length release “Cryptic Aura”. Featuring ten tracks and over 42 minutes of madness, this release combines lush instrumentation with pummeling drumming and playful riffing. Led by Mike Hrubovcak (vocalist of Imperial Crystalline Entombment), and featuring Mike Heller on drums and Pete Johansen (ex Sins of Thy Beloved) in violins, the band’s music is quite diverse and very engaging, with plenty of interesting details to discover in subsequent spins.

    Blasting away with “Into Abysmal Oblivion”, the band’s monster drumming leads the way into crafty tempo changes with masterful guitar leads from Ryan Moll and the lush violins of Pete Johansen, creating a very unique atmosphere. Slowly building up the madness, tracks like “Insomnia Nervosa”, and “Aeons Adrift” perfectly balance some crunch Death Metal antics with over the top atmospherics, all while creating a very chaotic and consuming vibe. The band excels in creating very busy soundscapes that are cohesive and engaging, while being very exploratory as well.

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    Sarmat - Upgrade (2025)

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    Always pushing the boundaries of Metal, bands on I, Voidhanger Records constantly challenge the status quo with intense releases. Today we have Sarmat and their insane Jazzy/Proggy Metal release titled “Upgrade”. Featuring two tracks and over 22 minutes of crazy music, this release has a very free-flowing vibe that is both aurally pleasing and yet very chaotic and contrived. If you like the more Jazzy side of Ihsahn with a splash of Maudlin of the Well and Dysrhythmia, do not miss out on the madness.

    Opening with the playful album title track, we get a blistering start with a crafty bass guitar line and intricate drumming. This quickly transforms into engaging riffs and funky tempo changes as the song transitions into more experimental territories with trumpets and some sparse vocals. The band’s sound is definitely quite unique and engaging as it keeps changing and leaving the listener always guessing what is around the corner for this 14-minute piece. Closing with a wall of dissonance, this track definitely gets the point of the band across.

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    Thy Catafalque - XII: A gyönyörü álmok ezután jönnek (2024)

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    Always pushing the envelope and creating some truly unique releases, Tamás Kátai’s Thy Catafalque returns with their latest opus “XII: A gyönyörü álmok ezután jönnek”. Featuring eleven tracks and over 50 minutes of very diverse and dynamic music, this release is truly an Avant-garde music lover paradise. With each track, the album explores a wide palette of sounds ranging from crafty folky elements to traditional Death/Black Metal, to more atmospheric and explorative pieces.

    The release opens with the playful and dreamy “Piros kocsi, fekete éj”, which features live vocalist Martina Horváth alongside Attila Bakos, creating a dynamic and yet somewhat folky vibe. Shifting gears into heavier territories, “Mindenevö” delivers powerful guitars and harsh vocals, providing a nice contrast to the first track while keeping the band’s dynamic sound thanks to lush choir arrangements. This playfulness and exploratory nature continues as “Vasgyár” delivers more heaviness with some weirdness, “Világnak világa” keeps things atmospheric, and “Nyárfa, nyírfa” unravels that Folky catchiness that the band always exploits.

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    Doedsmaghird - Omniverse Consciousness (2024)

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    Not satisfied after releasing the best album of 2023 (“Black Medium Current”) with DHG last year, Vicotnik returns with Camille Giradeau under the moniker Doedsmaghird, to push things even further and weirder. With a more raw and less bounded perspective “Omniverse Consciousness” unleashes nine tracks and over 50 minutes of Avant-garde Black Metal madness that is chilling, trippy, and extremely awesome.

    Setting a very tormentous mood, “Heart of Hell” delivers harsh riffing, funky atmospherics, and the unique vocal antics of Vicotnik. Of course there are some inevitable DHG elements in this release, however they are merely components to a more complex and chaotic palette of sounds that tracks like “Sparker Inn Apne Dorer” and “Then, to Darkness return” showcase. With some songs being as fierce as they can, to others exploring weirder and more psychedelic territories, like “Endless Distance”, this release features a bit of everything for everybody.

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    Zeal & Ardor - GREIF (2024)

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    Returning with another very interesting and totally intoxicating release, today we have Manuel Gagneux and Zeal & Ardor with their latest opus “GREIF”. Featuring fourteen tracks of pure genius, this release feels more chaotic and yet more raw than their previous ones, thanks to the full incorporation of the band’s live members into songwriting and recording roles. With a very unique and hard to pin down style, the band presents a very diverse and dynamic palette of sound, ranging from completely wild experimental pieces to your ‘standard’ Black Metal-infused heaviness.

    Opening with the solemn “the Bird, the Lion and the Wildkin”, we get a nice warm-up featuring crafty atmospherics and Manuel’s Signature vocals, preparing us for the madness that is to come. With a more epic feel, “Fend You Off” we get the band’s multi layered vocal approach that creates such epic soaring melodies, alongside a hefty dose of heaviness. With a great knack for catchiness, “Kilonova” creates a very lively and engaging atmosphere, with an excellent chorus section and highly addictive percussions.

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    Hail Spirit Noir - Fossil Gardens (2024)

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    Masters of Progressive/Avant-garde Black Metal weirdness Hail Spirit Noir are back with one of the most unique and engaging releases of 2024. With “Fossil Gardens”, the band further expands their sound into weirder territories with seven tracks and nearly 44 minutes of pure madness. With some familiar elements from outfits like Arcturus and more modern Dødheimsgard, this Greek outfit has managed to carve a totally unique style to themselves and continue to push the boundaries of Metal music.

    Opening with the trippy “Starfront Promenade”, the vibe is instantly set to weird, but highly melodic and always unexpected. Clean vocalist, Dimitris Dimitrakopoulos, provides a very interesting counterpart to the harsh vocal and the wide palette of sounds this band unleashes. Things gradually get weird, with the Psychedelically magical “The Temple of Curved Space” and its superb melodic catchiness.

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    Nebelkrähe - Ephemer (2023)

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    Hailing from Germany, today we have the strange but quite awesome Nebelkrähe and their first release in ten years “Ephemer”. Combining elements from bands like Eisregen, Pensées Nocturnes, Devil Doll, The Vision Bleak, User Ne, etc., this outfit delivers seven tracks and over 50 minutes of catchy, melodic, and yet odd music. Full of blistering onslaughts alongside a wide range of different instruments like saxophone, harp, dulcimer, the band creates a very melancholic atmosphere that is quite bleak and exciting.

    Opening with “Tumult auf Claim Abendland”, the band sets a dissonant mood thanks to its lush acoustic opening that suddenly tours dark and sour with the distorted guitars and harsh snarls. With the band singing exclusively in German, the vocals sound harsher than average, reminding us of Eisregen. While not being soft or too melodic, tracks like “Nielandsmann” and “Ephemer” have a very theatrical vibe, with lush melodic passages alongside creepy clean vocals creating a doomy atmosphere.

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    Bolt Gun - The Tower (2023)

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    Continuing the tradition of uncovering and promoting some truly unique artists around the world, Avantgarde Music is set to unleash Bolt Gun and their latest release “The Tower”. With five tracks and over 50-minutes of music, this release is quite intoxicating and mysterious, brilliantly covering everything from Doom Metal to Post-Rock to Ambient. Recommended for fans of bands like The Ocean, Cult of Luna, and Neurosis.

    Slowly setting a very unnerving mood with “The Tower”, the band patiently unravels their layers as they transition from Ambient territories into heavier Sludgy/Doomy land alongside jazzy Saxophones and harsh vocals. The band excels at creating magical tempo changes that could go into dark territories or just all-out aggression, perfectly weaving together long masterfully crafted tracks with many angles and dynamic shifts like the brilliant “The Vulture”.

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    Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current (2023)

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    Delivering a complete ‘holy shit’ moment, today we have the legendary Dødheimsgard returning with their first full-length release in eight years with “Black Medium Current”. While the band has continued to play live and deliver some truly enthralling performances, this release shows that the years of waiting were not in vain as it is their best release to date. Featuring nine tracks and nearly 70 minutes of masterful Avantgarde Black Metal music, this release will blow you away from the first couple of minutes.

    The madness commences with the mellow opening to “Et smelter”, a slow momentum building couple of minutes until the relentless waves of BM riffs make their way. With Vicotnik and Tommy Guns handling the guitars, this opener oozes melancholy and intensity, perfectly paired with unique vocal arrangements and a very oppressive atmosphere. This unique and chaotic vibe is nicely continued with the ravaging and temperamental “Tankespinnerens Smerte”, a track that nicely leverages dreamy vocals and brilliant melodic interludes.

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    Project 34 - Project 34 (2022)

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    Unleashing a whole musical experience on its own, Project 34 is set to release their eponymous third release in December of 2022. Led by Chris & Renee Lahoud from Australia, this project combines over 30 musicians from over 13 countries, creating one of the most distributed collaborations we have heard in the dark corners of Metal music. Clocking in at 64 minutes, this album is composed of three different chapters divided in 19 songs that cover many genres of Metal and non-Metal styles.

    Instead of reviewing track by track, we will focus more on each of the three chapters, the first one is comprised of tracks 1 to 5 and it kicks off with Middle-Eastern instrumentation and it quickly leads into heavy distorted guitars and a certain Ihshan-esque proggy vibe as the saxophone comes into play. The guitar leads are quite intoxicating and perfectly blended between moments of aggression and great melody, particularly in the third song of this chapter which sounds a bit like if Opeth would play both their old stuff with some of their groovier newer elements.

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