Beyond little-known, yet infamous underground sub-genres of metal like pornogrind, unblack metal and pirate metal, there are even more bizarre amalgams of the Devil’s music. For this Loud List, we rounded up some of the most obscure branches of metal’s family tree.

It was only a matter of time before surf metal and ska metal were attempted by some mad metal scientists. We’re not saying it works, necessarily, but the song “R.I.P.TIDE” by a band of the same name, is entertaining at the least and deserves more than a measly thousand views on YouTube. Same goes with “Cosmic Super Ghoul” by ska metal weirdos Gloominous Doom.

Onto concoctions that (by all conventional wisdom) shouldn’t have worked, but did, we arrive at Zeal & Ardor. The only act to ever attempt mixing blues, black metal and slave spirituals, they got metalheads’ attention with Devil is Fine, only to follow it up with one of 2018’s finest releases, Stranger Fruit. The underground phenomenon of Z&A still isn’t on most metalheads’ radars, but absolutely should be.

Metal fiends may be familiar with Nekrogoblikon’s brand of goblin metal, but an equally hilarious brand of music was spawned a decade ago — Orc rock. This is thanks to one-man vocal/keyboard project ORCumentary, which proves to be the guiltiest of pleasures alongside Mac Sabbath or Okilly Dokilly. You’ll see a piece of ORCumentary’s “Goblin Death March” video in this list, but few YouTube clips are more satisfying than Orc Adams crushing “Blood” inside a near-empty Hot Topic.

Check out these 10 Metal Subgenres You Didn’t Know Existed in the Loud List above.

The Best Metal Albums From 40 Subgenres

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