What are your favourite genre-bending bands/artists?
I really enjoy music that blurs traditional genre lines and draws on multiple different influences to make something unique and distinctive. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, so I'd love to hear of any groups that have caught your attention for the same reason!
I'll start out with one of my own recs, as an example - I absolutely love the band Hollenthon. They're probably most closely described as black/death metal, except that they include full orchestras + choirs as part of their instrumentation, and draw on a bunch of diverse inspiration across classical music, modern movie music, and even traditional ethnic/folk melodies. The result is an incredibly interesting and distinctive sound that I haven't heard paralleled in any other band I know of. Example song - Y Draig Goch
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have played around with a whole bunch of genres - perhaps some of their music might work for you. Their style varies enough that I only really click with some of their albums, so I recommend trying songs from a few different ones.
I mentioned going to see them in concert once but I didn't mention that before that I had put a lock on listening to any of their music, and because they are so prolific they already had a number of albums I hadn't heard. I wanted to have the experience of listening to their music for the first time, live.
It was interesting when they opened with a country song and it was surprising midway through when they started rapping.
By the way, I wholeheartedly recommend doing the same thing I did if you aren't well versed in their music. Not only are they way better live than they are in the recording studio, but this was a three hour concert and it was amazing the entire time.
That and there will be so many pot smokers there you'll get a contact high.
Love these guys. Their newest album is great but not my style. Omnium Gatherum though is a straight up masterpiece that I cannot stop listening to and contains so many different styles but still retains that Gizz feeling that encompasses their vibe.
Came here to say King Gizz too! I’ve been a fan since Nonagon blew my mind in 2016 but there has yet to be an album of theirs I haven’t loved. Jazz, garage, psych, thrash, prog, microtonal, synth-pop, blues boogie, sweet jammy goodness, and straight up summon-a-dragon metal. I’m spoiled!
Infest The Rats' Nest is the album that got me into thrash metal. It's not like a disliked the genre, I just didn't really seek out any bands. After listening to that record it became one of my favourite types of music, just behind nu metal.
Oh boy, do I have a list for you. Metal and jazz are the genres I listen to the most which results in some awesome fusions. I've separated my list by perceived "harshness" since I know not everyone enjoys abrasive music.
Clean
Compasses - (Progressive Joropo):
I discovered these guys through a popular youtube video many years ago. I highly recommend watching the whole video. I had no idea that the maracas could be played with such depth. Check out their album Sotavento for more.
Thank You Scientist - (Prog Rock, Jazz Fusion):
This band has seven members to cover vocals, guitar, violin, bass, trumpet, saxophone, and drums as well as guests to provide trombone, percussion, cello, etc. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but Thank You Scientist manages to intricately blend it all together. My favorite album is Terraformer.
Crying - (Electropop, Chiptune, Power Pop):
Prepare for some upbeat, energetic gameboy bleeps overlayed with soft female vocals and backed by rock guitars and drums. Even though Get Olde Second Wind implements chiptune to great effect, Crying eventually moved away from it in their later releases.
Dutty Moonshine Big Band - (Big Band, Electro swing, Rap):
This 14 piece big band presents itself as a collective of moonshine peddling, fire spitting, most wanted gangsters straight out of a film noir. Their debut album, Most Wanted, is loud, brash, and intense.
Blood Ceremony - (Psychedelic Doom Rock/Metal, Occult, Folk):
Blood Ceremony is an eclectic combination of Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, and a flute wielding witch. You can't go wrong with any of their albums, but Lords of Misrule is a personal favorite of mine.
Native Construct - (Prog Metal, Musical Theatre, Jazz Fusion):
Quiet World is unfortunately Native Construct's one and only album. It is a whimsical voyage delivered through vocal harmonies, technical composition, and symphonic arrangements. Disclaimer: this album contains harsh vocals, but they appear sparingly.
Rough
Diablo Swing Orchestra - (Symphonic Avant-garde Metal, Swing):
Take some strings, brass, and synths and mash them together with a metal band. Then add operatic vocals and you end up with Diablo Swing Orchestra. Their sound continues to mutate over the years, but all of their albums have their own charm. Their first album, The Butcher's Ballroom, is still an excellent starting point.
Nine Treasures - (Mongolian Folk Metal):
There are many Mongolian folk metal bands, but Nine Treasures is my favorite one. If you've never heard this style before, you're in for a treat. The traditional instruments and Mongolian throat singing are complemented by driving folk metal. Awakening from Dukkha is a compilation of re-recorded and re-mastered songs from their discography.
Panzerballet - (Jazz Fusion, Prog Metal, Funk):
This is the very essence of "jazz metal". Tank Goodness.
Zeal and Ardor - (Industrial/Black Metal, Soul, Gospel, Folk):
I picked Zeal and Ardor's album Stranger Fruit for the July 2023 AlbumLove Tildes thread. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of Zeal and Ardor.
Harsh
Sigh - (Avant-garde/Black Metal, Symphonic):
Sigh is a Japanese band that creates highly experimental metal with an unusually melodic nature. They incorporate all kinds of instruments, synthetic elements, and varied vocal styles. In Somniphobia is just one of their many genre defying journeys.
Dreadnought - (Progressive Extreme/Post-Metal/Rock):
I can't get enough of Dreadnought's haunting and captivating vocals. Their most recent album, The Endless, dials back the metal and might be easier on the ears for some. It's a fantastic album, but Emergence is their best in my opinion because of its black metal influence and more extreme vocals.
Whispered - (Melodic Death/Power Metal, Japanese Folk):
This Finnish band can be described as "samurai metal". Their music is heavily inspired by Japanese folklore and features traditional instruments. Metsutan - Songs of the Void is full of bangers.
Rolo Tomassi - (Mathcore, Post-Hardcore, Prog Rock):
This band has evolved so much throughout their history, but they have always retained an experimental ideology. Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It is one of my favorite albums of all time. I honestly don't know how to describe it. I leave it up to you to give it a chance and form your own opinion.
Potmos Hetoimos - (Prog/Doom/Sludge/Post-Metal, Jazz):
Vox Medusae by Potmos Hetoimos is an undeniably weird and chaotic experience. I believe it strikes a fine balance between structured noise and creative genius.
Chthonic (閃靈) - (Melodic Death/Black Metal, Taiwanese Folk):
Chthonic is one of Taiwan's greatest gifts to the world. All of their albums are deeply rooted in Taiwanese history. Most of their albums have two versions, one with English lyrics and one with Taiwanese lyrics. I personally prefer the Taiwanese versions, but they are a little harder to find. Some of the music videos for Bú-Tik have the Taiwanese lyrics.
Well this ended up a lot longer than I intended, but I had a lot of fun re-listening to such diverse music. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy at least one of the bands listed here.
Holy crap, is it my birthday? It must be my birthday, because this list is so freaking amazing, omg. I'm definitely going to listen to all of them through at some point, but I jumped straight down to the Harsh section to start with, and all of the first three groups I've listened to so far have me super hooked. Whispered especially has gotta be the coolest band I've heard in a long time, and is now the reason I'm not getting through the rest of the list for a little while haha, because I really need to check out more of their stuff first. Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this up!!
edit: oh no, I went from "okay I'm going to check out all these new groups quickly!" to "okay well maybe I'll just listen to as much of Whispered's discography as I can because they're awesome" to "okay now I'm just looping Tsukiakari a million times"... good problems to have ahaha, think I've found my new favourite song in recent memory!
I'm glad that my comment helped you find new music. I had the same reaction as you when I first listened to Whispered. They are one of my go-to bands for getting pumped up.
Check out Chthonic as well. There's a good chance you'll like them since you enjoyed Whispered.
Just wanted to throw in here for some jazzy metal fusion. Rivers of Nihil. Death Metal saxophone. Need I say more? Albums "The Work" and "Where the Owls Know my Name". The Fall and Winter albums of their 4 season include a lot of jazzy and 70s rock influences (Pink Floyd for sure).
Also the rest of this list is great. Zeal and Ardor is probably top 5 for me. Also Whispered and Rolo Tomassi are great. Ill be exploring the rest of this list I had not seen before.
Rivers of Nihil definitely fits in this thread. I saw them on tour when Where Owls Know My Name released, and they were fantastic.
In a similar vein, check out White Ward. They are experimental post-black metal with a dedicated saxophonist. False Light and Love Exchange Failure are both phenomenal albums.
Hey love Diablo Swing Orchestra. My personal favorite song of theirs is Celebremos Lo Inevitable. It is such an interesting song, considering the fact that they are from Sweden, who mainly sings in English, and Kristin Evegård, just sings it entirely in Spanish. Another favorite on YouTube of theirs is War Painted Valentine.
Easily one of my favourite bands in this regard is Igorrr. I reckon there's a fine line between genius and insanity and that seems to be where project mastermind Gautier Serre likes to play most. A broad variety of instrumentation and styles are melded in many surprising, exciting and befuddling ways in and around the robust core of death/black metal: baroquial harpsichords, operatic sopranos, Eastern strings, all manner of electronic pads, percussives and glitchery, and even custom pieces handmade by the multi-talented team behind the tape.
Igorrr definetly deserves the praise, they're amazingly creative and are a real treat to listen to!
For those interested, Corpo-Mente is also very good, it's composed of most of Igorrr members but it's a bit more focused on opera singing and a bit less less on glitch electronica.
Igorrr definitely fits the bill here. I was aware of him from when I listened to a lot of breakcore, and stumbled into Vegetable Soup then the studio video of Cheval which was, to that date, one of the wilder things I'd heard.
I always enjoyed how there's always that sort a black metal and/or breakcore influence lurking in the background, and they build on it for large, beautiful compositions, usually shortly before the music just turns to 11.
Ween (in their golden years) has been the best genre-bending band I've heard. Chocolate and Cheese, Quebec, The Mollusk, and Pure Guava are some of the most diverse sounds I've heard come from a single band. In fact, "genre-hopping" may be a better term than genre-bending.
The Books. I'm not entirely sure how to describe them... Folksy experimental electronic, perhaps?
I love The Books. My first time listening to them, it was on the speaker system in my frat house’s living room. One of the brothers came in and asked if the CD was bundled with a pound bag of weed. When I replied in the negative, he said that The Books ought to be required to bundle weed with every purchase.
I wonder if they ever made follow-on songs about skip-hop and slide-hop.
Dang, I was instantly hooked from that three-word-description and the music itself certainly lived up to it! Very cool group, thanks for the rec!
Shpongle. You never know what's next when you haven't listened to them before.
My father in law loves them, though he's switching to Goose lately.
I love Goose. If we're going jambands The Disco Biscuits should be up there too. Not huge on their new stuff but I've never been to a show that switched from a rock concert to a rave so fast. It's so much fun if you're into that kind of thing.
I used to be - still would be too, actually - but I have a family and kids to worry about and I like party drugs too much. I wouldn't want to rave without them, but I haven't used them since starting a family and I intend to keep it that way.
Yeah I’m starting to grow out of them myself. I'm about to buy a house and can't afford going to the shows like I used to. I find myself listening to other music and even podcasts way more too. But when it comes to genre-bending I can't think of a better example.
Much like Dark Side of the Moon makes my spine tingle and takes me back to Lucy headspace, Shpongle is synonymous with shrooms to me.
Some music is made for tripping, and once you've tripped to it, you'll never separate the two again; at least in this one man's opinion.
Never heard of these guys. I'm liking them! Thanks!
They do a 20+ piece live stage show, it's crazy.
Their top tracks are pretty mind bending.
Love Polyphia. They started off as a prog metal-ish instrumental group, then started to incorporate more pop and hip hop composition and production styles over the past 7 or so years. They've always been on the more melodic side of instrumental guitar music, so they cater to a wide audience too.
Hard to pin down a genre for them nowadays, but I highly recommend checking them out if you're into something different that's still relatively easy to listen to.
Remember That You Will Die is their most recent album and my personal favorite, but their vocal features have been slightly divisive. New Levels New Devils is probably their most well-known album. Off the two albums, I'd start with "Playing God", "G.O.A.T.", and also "Goose" off The Most Hated.
Later this year I'm going to see Polyphia with DOMi & JD BECK - aka "we heard you're a bunch of music nerds who want to see some inhuman performances", the concert.
Nice, hope you enjoy, they're phenomenal live. I saw them on their previous tour last year and had a crazy time. Lots of moshing. Scottie knows how to work the crowd.
I absolutely LOVE The Hu. A Mongolian Metal Band. I do not like metal, but metal performed with native instruments, peppered with Mongolian Throat singing, and absolutely prodigious musicianship sold me. Check them out on YouTube or Spotify. Probably a myriad of other ways too.
[Sorry for 50 edits I was trying to figure out the markup to share a video with a worded link]
Sleep Token. If you haven't heard this band, you're in for a treat. I wish I could forget them just to listen to all of their songs again for the first time. They incorporate everything from metal, to hiphop, to jazz. One of the best singers I've heard and my favorite drummer. I believe they're touring with Slipknot soon.
I think Take Me Back To Eden is the best example of their genre bending.
Another great band that blends genres is Aviations. Fairly unknown. Most of the guys in this band went to Berkeley for music and it shows. My favorite is the Jazz interlude in Intense In Tents. And their newest song, Coma.
Hope you take a listen to these! I'm checking out Hollenthon now.
Both of these groups are exactly the kind of recs I was hoping for when I made this thread - thank you so much! Take Me Back To Eden was an incredible vibe, and Intense In Tents was such an intriguing and polished musical journey that had me hooked from start to finish (you're right, the Berkeley training really does come through). Going to try to work my way through the rest of the responses in this thread so far now, but I will 100% be bookmarking both of these two to come back to later (and often). Cheers!
(edit: okay I lied, I honestly did intend to do that, but it autoplayed more Aviations and now I'm in it and I don't have the heart to change gears 😅 sorry rest-of-the-thread, I really do appreciate everyone's responses and I promise I'll get to them when I can!)
Two of my favorites are Diablo Swing Orchestra and Submotion Orchestra (the coincidence in their names is not lost on me lol).
DSO blend progressive metal/rock, big band swing, and opera. A perfect example of this is their song, A Tap Dancer’s Dillema.
Submotion Orchestra blends velvet lounge jazz and EDM to make some wonderfully textured music that’s equally chill and mysterious. I’d recommend anything in their discography, but one of my favorite songs is All Yours.
Gnod are fantastic heavy/punky psych. They are more of a collective so members can come and go and do some weird stuff on the side but the band itself is great.
BMTH have really managed to make a varied discography and be fantastic everytime. Yes even the early deathcore.
Oh man, I used to listen to BMTH back in the day. Heard some of their newer stuff recently and had a hard time believing it was even them. Same with Attack Attack!
The most genre-bending bands I can think of are Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3. Both are great bands but Mr Bungle are a bit more accessible, I think.
I've always felt this band had some neat mashups but they're completely unknown to anyone save me, it seems. When this album first came out and I found it on an FTP, I played it nonstop for months. They never released anything else and I never found out why until recently - soon after that album released, the lead singer passed away from cancer.
Hopefully someone finds this as enjoyable as I do!
PREP.
It's like a millennial version of Steely Dan.
As somebody who runs in pretty queer circles, that is quite a band name.
Does Laibach count? I feel like they do, myself. So, anyway, for sure Laibach, and then maybe also Movits!.
Would Mike Oldfield count or is he too clearly aligned with prog rock to be relevant to this list?
Amarok is my favorite album of his.
I'm not sure if this fits what you're looking for but I always thought Diablo Swing Orchestra had a very unique and kind of strage sound, though I thoroughly enjoy it. One of their most popular songs is Balrog Boogie.
They're not around anymore, but Cool Cavemen have some fantastic music. They were a Funk fusion band that would blend with a few rock-related genres. A lot of their earlier albums were released for free under Creative Commons licenses, though their later commercially released ones are some of their best.
They're also not the most serious band out there, and they're French. So they're not for everyone. Many (most?) of their songs are in English, though you might have to listen closely to get past the accent.
They’re not active any more, but Mother Falcon is a good listen for chamber orchestra rock.
Maybe try some African musicians? Mdou Moctar plays a mean guitar, for example. If you prefer a more stripped-down sound, Gasper Nali plays a giant self-made one-string slide guitar drum instrument called a babatoni.