The Best Avantgarde / Experimental Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2024

Aluk Todolo - Lux

Aluk Todolo had not released anything in 8 years. It seems that this realisation gave the French instrumental trio a newfound sense of urgency and passion, because Lux is easily their densest, most extreme work to date. Marrying the bounciness of krautrock to the mesmerising tremolo leads often heard in black metal has always been the modus operandi of this band. That being said, the alarming tone behind Lux is bound to shock listeners the first time, newcomers and fans alike. But fear not, because the wild psychedelia and grooviness the band has always been known for is more alive and kicking than ever!

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Cave Sermon - Divine Laughter

What makes an album 'avant-garde' can vary quite a bit; it might be a completely novel musical idea, a wacky and alien take on an existing genre, or a fusion of multiple styles that cannot be pinned down to any one sound. Cave Sermon's Divine Laughter is more an example of the latter; one can hear elements of black, sludge, and dissonant death metal within its extreme metal framework, but the resulting mesh is distinct from any one of them, not least due to the additional integration of progressive and post-metal writing that renders the songs even more unfamiliar. The resultant concoction is perhaps similar to acts like Aseitas, but while the core of Divine Laughter is similarly abrasive to that band, the use of harsh ambient noise sees that abrasion take a different form. Yet in spite of all this, there are also moments of remarkable melody that turn the listening experience into an even more unpredictable one. It's collectively a lot to digest, but with positively divine execution, Cave Sermon's new record is one that rewards those willing to engage with it.

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Dola - Tabernakulum

After a doomy self-titled debut with Dola and a more formless take on post-metal with Czasy, Dola come out with something that seemingly tried to get their feet back on the ground but ends up making things weird again. On one hand, the riffing feels groovier (and as a result, more grounded), but on the other hand the way the band uses the dissonance of black metal feels unique, unchaining the blackened post-sludge metal in a very free jazz/experimental rock way, while still pushing them into structured and very engaging melodies.

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Five The Hierophant - Apeiron

Apeiron is a gurgling pool of droning sludge – fuzzy, noisy, lurching forward on staggering drums and looping bass, so immersive in its hypnotic repetition that you won’t even notice the passage of time. At least, that’s what it is on the underside. Taken as is, that would make for a very cool album of psychedelic doom: something like Dark Buddha Rising, Wolvennest, Waste Of Space Orchestra, some kind of dark, meandering Roadburn-core with an unstable sense of reality. But there’s more to Five The Hierophant than that; with saxophone freely iterating over those long stretches of crawling fuzz, Apeiron becomes an entirely new beast, a cosmic voyage of dark jazz. Whatever is happening in that Odd Nerdrum painting on the cover, this is exactly what it sounds like.

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Laudare - Requiem

While not yet a fully established trend, chamber metal fusions have been brought forth by several bands by this point, and of these acts, Laudare are arguably the most refined and accessible of the bunch. Requiem does an outstanding job of merging chamber strings and chorals with screamo, post-rock, and progressive metal, and Laudare have crafted a collection of songs that are emotional, rich, unpredictable, intense, and enchanting, placing raw and refined elements adjacent to - and in synchrony with - one another.

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Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Initially starting out as a psychedelic take on black metal, Oranssi Pazuzu's sound over time started to slowly de-emphasize the black metal part, instead focusing on the jammy space rock/krautrock injections that made the entire thing feel so avant-garde in the first place. Muuntautuja does continue that trend, but unlike the jammier Mestarin Kynsi, it descends on a more malevolent and abrasive path. The soundscapes are noisier and more off-kilter than we've heard from Oranssi Pazuzu in a while and sonically extreme despite black metal not being the main musical ammunition anymore.

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Papangu - Lampi​ã​o Rei

Holoceno first gained notoriety for its blend of sludge metal and very niche prog rock, Lampi​ã​o Rei takes that blend and expands the prog rock part of it, leaving just enough of a metallic nuance to fit on this website. Their niche "zeuhl" (think Magma in the '70s) branch of prog now takes a lot more jazz and scenic influences than being merely zeuhl. There's something unapologetically Brazilian, and that's partly what makes the album flow with an almost dreamlike quality, sometimes feeling like a lost album from a period past, sometimes feeling like something very forward-thinking.

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Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of The Last Human Being

Wilting jazz, paranoid neofolk, and shuddering ambient; flatulent horns, skittering violin, and disassembling percussion; jingling bells, creaking doors, and sproingy springs. For the first time in 17 years, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum have gathered to give us a tour of the exhibits, and they’ve weaponized basically every sound and object they ever encountered in the intervening gap. While heavy at times, Of The Last Human Being is sort of a low-key trip, primarily adopting the tenor of a mad carnival that often sinks into slow, bizarre atmospheres, always on edge with whispers, chants, and tense strings even in its calmest stretches. Worth highlighting is the sheer strangeness of the lead vocals, delivered with a combination of theatricality, fear, hostility, and passion that evokes Mike Patton or Björk even when declining Latin verbs. There’s so much at work on this album, so many instruments and little bursts of sound lurking in every corner – this is the kind of incomprehensibility that can keep an unprepared listener awake at night. We must know more!

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Thy Catafalque - XII: A Gyönyörű Álmok Ezután Jönnek

Thy Catafalque is such an old hand in this category that you might think there are no surprises anymore - the project has won this spot four times now, and you know that anything Tamás Kátai releases is going to be great. XII: A Gyönyörű Álmok Ezután Jönnek is, of course, phenomenal, combining electronics in both ambient and industrial settings with manic and furious extreme prog to deliver the same cool, synthetic, fluid, and stimulating atmospheric metal that this project has so long excelled at. But if you always knew what to expect, well, that wouldn't be very avant-garde, would it? XII has to beat even the best expectations, and so it celebrates the 25th anniversary of Thy Catafalque's first album basically by showing off just how far the band has come and how far it can spread its wings. Kátai is joined by numerous guests, including old friends and new arrivals, who together craft an album that sounds richer, fuller, and more vibrant than ever before. There is no such thing as "just another Thy Catafalque album"; let's hope we can reconvene in another 25 years with something just as magnificent.

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Trelldom - ...By The Shadows...

How do you revive a band that has been dormant for 17 years, while your own musical horizons have been broadened by numerous other bands and projects? If you are Gaahl, you just ignore what came before and create something completely new. If you like your avant-garde chaotic, emotional, and melodic, with great build-ups and catchy but not overused melodies, then this album is for you. There's no point in comparing it to Trelldom's previous work. This is different: music that has more in common with the likes of Dødheimsgard and Ihsahn than Gorgoroth but manages to create a cold, dark, and oppressive atmosphere that feeds almost entirely on elements not traditionally found in black metal. It is beautifully crafted to lure the listener in with memorable, almost head-bangable riffs, only to torture them with oppressive, repetitive, and often dissonant passages. When this system is allowed to work its magic, which not all of these songs do to the same degree, the result is a listening experience that is both terrifying and comforting, but keeps you coming back for more.

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