10 Amazing Metal Bands That Totally Defy Genre
8. Khonsu
Khonsu. Are they progressive metal? Are they black metal? Are they speed metal? Are they industrial metal? Who cares, they’re f*cking good!
Self-described as “innovative Norwegian extreme metal”, this manic duo inject old-school black metal with aggressive melodies, experimental songwriting and cosmic imagery, making these elaborate Scandinavians endlessly enigmatic.
Dissonant guitars whirl over sometimes operatic and sometimes frenetic vocalisations, while blast-beats rumble underneath with the pace and destructive capability of an earthquake. Robotic keyboards smash their way through the mix, adding to the industrial edge of Khonsu’s emphatic suites.
After four years of toiling in the extreme music underground, Khonsu finally hit their zenith in 2016 with their sophomore album The Xun Protectorate, a record that can only be described as one of the modern metal sphere’s best kept secrets.
Balancing out the clean-cut grandeur of “The Observatory” with the frantic darkness of “A Jhator Ascension” and the sheer adventurousness of the opus “Toward the Devouring Light”, Khonsu’s newest output is something that every extreme metalhead of this generation should fully invest themselves in. If there’s any justice in the world, this fascinating collective will, before long, start receiving more acclaim for their un-compromised versatility.