Zu, "Rudra Dances over Burning Rome"
Hell yes. Do Zu play heavily rock-inflected jazz? Is it instead jazzy avant-garde metal? Who cares, is it fun? (It is.) I wandered into Zu after learning that Mombu was a side-project of parts of Zu, and I'm glad I did. I love this kind of genre-hopping mishmash of stuff.
Blut Aus Nord, "Paien"
Black metal band out of France, Blut Aus Nord has been making an unholy racket for twenty something years now, cranking out a ton of albums including multiple trilogies. If that sounds overwrought, that's probably because it is, overwrought theatrics being part of the classic black metal playbook, along with strangled vocals, blast beats, and furious tremelo picking. This comes from Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry which, yeah - overwrought. This song would probably tell you if you want to listen to more Blut Aus Nord or not.
Supernova, "Books"
Southern California pop punk, more towards the Descendents end of things than anything. They ended up on Amphetamine Reptile Records, which is apparently how I noticed them. They also apparently did the "Chewbacca" song from Clerks, so, huh. Reading about them, they also apparently shared a member with Man or Astro-man?, so that's cool. Anyway, this album is basically what it sounds like here.
The Mae Shi, "Spoils of Injury"
A brief trifle from noise pop merchants The Mae Shi. Which I accidentally type as "The Mae Shit" all the time. Well, to the extent I ever type that name.
Locrian, "Arc of Extinction"
Now that's a proper name for a metal song. Anyway, we have another bombastic experimental metal band here, again pursuing a huge sound. Locrian here is playing pretty straight black metal, but they explore lots of different styles of metal in their music.