Vulture Industries are as great as they are weird! “Avant-garde black metal” only begins to scratch the surface of what is going on with this band from Bergen, Norway.

Imagine a singer who looks and performs like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull but sounds like Serj Tankian from System of a Down fronting a progressive metal band that veers through the spectrum of music from out-and-out black metal to ragtime piano runs and full-blown Vaudevillian vocals with carnival barker interludes. If that intrigues you, then you should know Vulture Industries!

Continue below for more and to check out a video.

The band was formed in 1998 as Dead Rose Garden and slogged it out on the Norwegian circuit for five years through various line-up changes. They changed their name to Vulture Industries in 2003 and recorded two demos and an EP before releasing their debut album The Dystopia Journals in 2007. They then followed it up with their sophomore offering The Malefactor’s Bloody Register in 2010. The band’s third and most recent album The Tower, released in 2013, really started gaining the band international attention. The album garnered widespread critical acclaim and landed on many a critics year end “best of” lists.

Vulture Industries draw a great deal of inspiration from the storied Slovenian experimental rock band Devil Doll (another band that you should check out if you dig this style).

The video below is of Vulture Industries performing the hidden track from The Tower titled “Blood Don’t Eliogabalus.” The track is a mash-up of a Vulture Industries original mixed with Devil Doll’s epic piece “Eliogabalus.” The guest vocalist near the end of this clip is Hoest, leader of fellow Bergen black metal band Taake (yet another band you should look into).

Video

[Source: Encyclopaedia Metallum]