I sure hope people understand the title, though usually something goes wrong with these requests. I'm not looking for bands that mix funk or rap or EBM or salsa into metal, I'm looking for bands that do unusual mixtures of metal subgenres, and only metal subgenres.

You know, like Confessor for example, or that recent-ish band Tyrant's Kall mixing death/doom with trad doom, or Algaion's General Emnity album with its odd mix of misanthropic black metal and Peaceville-ish gothy death/doom and rocking solos.

Would Tiamat's The Astral Sleep count? While the band's earlier stuff is labeled as doom/death metal, that album is so much more. You've got thrashing riffs, some blackened tremolos and slower doom-y chords appear. Definitely a unique album.

Anything counts as long as it's a one of a kind mix of metal subgenres, and it doesn't have to be something I don't know since this thread was intended to be halfway recommendation halfway discussion thread and I spent some time internally debating which subforum to put it.

Deceased for example is a classic in that regard, so is King's far less popular Doomstone project (not really his project, he just does the vocals, but he's probably the sole reason people know it at all.)

Some others that I forgot to mention...

The Chasm's first two albums - the first one brings to mind the early incarnations of At The Gates, Katatonia and Paradise Lost. There's gloom and melancholy, but also an otherworldly vibe floating around that gets pretty eerie at times. The second album is a heavier offering; more death/black oriented, but it still has some doom in the sound and overall it's a lot more firm sounding than the debut.

Obsecration - Oceanus Oblivione
Think of early Rotting Christ meets ...and Justice for All era Metallica. There's also some proggy/tech death riffs popping up here and there...and even the guitar solos bring to mind different guitar players! Very interesting album. It works!

Paradise Lost's The Plague Within, while simply referred as a return to the doom/death metal years of the band, is much more diverse when you look at the individual tracks. There's some Maiden-meets-gothic metal (track 1), death metal (track 2, 8), early European doom/death (track 5, 6) more traditional doom (track 9) and modern PL gothic metal on it (the rest).

No One Gets Out Alive - Brutal Death metal with a banjo. Surreal and cool.

Something always goes wrong.

Majestic Mass - Savage Empire of Death

A gnarly mix of traditional heavy metal, black metal and just a sliver of occult rock without drowning out the metal. Something like this maybe?

Reminds me of that band of that heavy metal guy that switched to black metal, Satan's Host was it?

That actually reminds me of an anecdote from many years ago, a friend was recording stuff for a brutal death metal project and he was starting to record vocals when I was around and I told him to sing the whole song in an Overkill/Bobby Blitz voice ("sing it like Elimination"), he did and he thought it was a joke but personally I thought it sounded awesome and fit the music perfectly. Wish someone did that for real one day.

Samael - Passage

Perfect but subtle mixture of black metal elements and industrial parts. It is so nicely blended together that you couldn't tell is that a black metal record, or industrial metal or something else. Everything is sooo nicely entwined and works just perfectly on its own. A similar standpoint I have on Moonspell's Wolfheart album.

You're right. It's a unique mix of Gothic, Black, Folk and Doom Metal.

Inter Arma is the king of subgenre diversity. Started off playing sludge, which is in itself doom + hardcore, combined with black metal. Added prog with Sky Burial. Went more melodic on Paradise Gallows.

Sulphur English is kind of "back to roots" with straight doom/sludge. Much less black + prog, which is probably why I didn't dig it as much.

Pathos (Swe) prog/thrash/doom/power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3OOwNLMYu0

Cattle Decapitation seems to be getting there.

On topic, there was that band with Axis of Advance/Revenge members and vocalist from Primordial - Blood Revolt was the name, I think, and it sounded pretty much like one would expect. I' m not a fan though.

Not a particularly good band IMO, but one recent release that comes to mind is Sidian - Carry My Bones. The band is listed as "technical/experimental death metal," and I find their sound pretty hard to pin down. I guess I would call them deathcore/post-black metal. They've got parts that sound like The Red Chord's debut and parts that sound like Cara Neir or something only without the d-beat drumming. I've heard of bands doing black metal + metalcore before, but specifically post-black metal seems rather an unusual choice.

Even if reminds me a little of viking era Bathory:
Gods Tower's mix of folk and old school doom metal strikes me as pretty unusual

Well, even though blackened-grindcore is beginning to become it's own sub-genre now, and is one of my favorite sub-genres period and a style i think is just amazing, very few bands really sound like an almost perfect mix of the style and it can sound unusual when done right.

Dephosphorus from Greece, who call themselves ''astro-grind'' play blackened-grindcore about astronomy and the album ''Night Sky Transform'' in particular, especially this track, sounds like an almost perfect mix, to me at least, of Deathspell Omega style black metal and Assuck style grindcore

This track never fails to get me going.

Listen for the almost perfect switch up from a more black metal style opening to a grindcore break down around 0;49; https://youtu.be/DVe0cbKN6Vg

But most blackened grindcore bands make it work by mixing more RAW black metal with grindcore which makes some sense, since there was always some crust punk influence on early black metal and crust is obviously related to grind, but JonnyX and the Groadies, who I fucking LOVE, are the only band I have ever heard who mix SYMPHONIC black metal with keyboards with grindcore and it's very cool sounding IMO;

https://youtu.be/PY6x_--V12c

https://youtu.be/_4VvZiWRCJE

I like Dephosphorus but I don't hear any Deathspell Omega in them to be honest. They remind me a lot more to bands like Knelt Rote but with a stronger focus on grindcore and black metal instead of death metal.

Furze often melds black and stoner metal, or at least more traditional sounding doom metal.

Ram-Zet have a cool hodgepodge going of progressive, industrial, and gothic metal with a little metalcore too.

Tower of Spite by Cerebral Fix takes a somewhat crossover thrash approach combined with doom metal.

Deceased... play some ripping death thrash through a traditional filter.

The Offering - Halford-ish vocals, Slipknot riffs, thrash breaks, newest thing I came across that may fit your criteria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcCPT8KuGu4

Anaal Nathrakh - "heavy, fast, chaotic black metal heavily influenced by grindcore and industrial music"... with triumphant choruses. They've mellowed out recently, however, older stuff def fits the description
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUcFAA1dKPY

Chapel of Disease - Calling this melodeath would be uncharitable, harsh vocals & bright rock 'n roll melodies stringed together with dm tremolos... can't really put my finger on it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJGY2Y4Y7_4

Sarpanitum - Messy, blastladen, kick abusing, kinda' brutal but not really dm with some cool melodic work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqOkWTFmC6w

Gridlink - Melodic/tech/prog/whatever grind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMlwGalMyzg

Demoniac - Blackened power metal, members went on to form DragonForce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umcMVpgw8wM

Therion - Lepaca Kliffoth

Therion's most diverse output, and the album that bridged the gap between their early death metal works and the more symphonic sound they would become more well-known for. That being said, this is neither a death metal nor a symphonic metal, at least not entirely. There is heavy metal, thrash, gothic, prog, doom, and trace amounts of both death and symphonic metal, but overall, it doesn't really have one set sound and just kind of sits in the midst of various different sub-genres.



Shadowseeds - Dream of Lilith

Sort of a cryptic, haunting sounding mix of melodic black/death metal with some occasional doomy slowness, gothic sounding clean male vocals, and a very majestic, Medieval atmosphere. The combination of the spoken vocals with the extreme metal sounding riffage is definitely a strange blend, making it sound very ambiguous and hard to place.



Chiva - Oracle Morte

A little bit of Summoning, Bethlehem, and Mortiis all in one; elements of atmoblack, gothic/doom, and darkwave without ever really sounding outright like any one particular genre.

I suppose Type O Negative's Slow, Deep and Hard would count here, as it mixes Sabbath-y doom dirges with fast, blistering crossover thrash parts. Carnivore is essentially the same, except swap out the ratio of doom and crossover thrash depending on which band.

Apparently the Carnivore records were a huge influence on the NOLA sludge scene, having been very popular among the clique down there with their own brewing sludge sound.

I guess this isn't uncommon in 2020 with the sludge scene developing, but it certainly wasn't common back in 1985/1987/1991. Thank Peter for the sludge scene in NOLA, I guess?

Forgot to mention Mental Home's Funeral Service demo. 90's gothic/doom/atmospheric metal meets thrash. It's odd.

Autumn Leaves "Embraced by the Absolute" - blends MDM/Gothenburg with old-school DM sound/vibes.

Maybe Cemetarys Godless Beauty fits your question? It mixes both death, doom and goth in a way that's quite unusual.

Look no further than Celtic Frost - Into the Pandemonium.

Starts off with an unlikely cover of Mexican Radio then going goth with Mesmerized as well as industrial with One In Their Pride.

Look no further than the first post of this thread.