Skip to main content
Heavy Metal Thunder Avant-Garde Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Industrial Metal Avant-Garde Metal

Avant-Garde Metal

Metal that refuses to sit still. Jazz, opera, circus music, anything at all — the only rule being that there isn’t one.

Active years
1993 – present
Origin
Norway / USA
Family
Industrial / Post / Avant
Bands here
15

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. La Masquerade Infernale Arcturus, 1997 The landmark

    Norwegian black metal musicians making cabaret. Garm sings rather than shrieks, there is a circus organ, and the whole thing behaves like theatre — the most enjoyable record in a genre that often is not.

    Listen to La Masquerade Infernale

  2. Imaginary Sonicscape Sigh, 2001

    Japanese, and the point at which the band abandoned any remaining rules. Saxophones, house piano, seventies prog synths and black metal, sequenced as though all of it were normal.

    Listen to Imaginary Sonicscape

  3. Devil Is Fine Zeal & Ardor, 2016

    Black metal and American slave spirituals, conceived as an answer to an internet dare and turning out to be an actual idea. Manuel Gagneux plays everything; it runs to twenty-five minutes and does not waste any of them.

    Listen to Devil Is Fine

  4. California Mr. Bungle, 1999

    Surf pop, doo-wop, exotica and death metal on the same record, played immaculately. The deep end not because it is heavy but because it refuses to settle for long enough to be described.

    Listen to California

What it sounds like

The rule is that there is no rule. Anything can appear: opera, jazz, circus music, electronics, spoken word, a saxophone, silence. Song structures refuse to repeat, keys and tempos change without warning, and the only constant is a metal foundation somewhere underneath. Vocals move between registers within a single line. Because the genre is defined by refusal rather than by a sound, two avant-garde records may have nothing audibly in common — which makes it the one category on this site where the label tells you the band's intention rather than what you will hear. Compared with progressive metal, which is complicated on purpose within a form, this abandons the form entirely, and the results range from magnificent to unlistenable.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 3 out of 5
  • Technicality 5 out of 5
  • Darkness 3 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

'Avant-garde' is French for 'advance guard,' referring to experimental, boundary-pushing work in any artistic discipline. Borrowed from classical music and visual art discourse and applied to metal bands — Arcturus, Mr. Bungle, The Dillinger Escape Plan — that defied all conventional genre classification.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Arcturus Norway
  • Mr. Bungle USA
  • Sigh Japan
  • Zeal & Ardor Switzerland
  • The Dillinger Escape Plan USA

And 10 more

  • Unexpect Canada
  • Solefald Norway
  • Virus Norway
  • Ephel Duath Italy
  • Boris Japan
  • Church of Misery Japan
  • Corrupted Japan
  • Coffins Japan
  • Thy Catafalque Hungary
  • Voodoo Kungfu China

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • Tokyo Visual Kei & Japanese Metal 3 bands
  • Japan Japanese Metal 5 bands

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.