The idea of this thread came to me when i find out that Aragorn (NWOBHM) released a compilation album on Depressive Illusions Records (for the few that doesn't know DIR is well known for releasing DSBM/Dark Ambient stuff on CD-R or even floppy disks). I would have thought that a band like that would have released their stuff with Rise Above, High Roller or other label in that style.
Any other weird and interesting case like that? i also found that Wolfsbane release their two albums on Def American.

Slayer was on Def American back in the 80's too

This probably isn't really what you mean, but Sheavy self-released their 2007 album The Machine That Won the War on their own Dallas Tarr label, for the first time since their 1996 debut Blue Sky Mind. After the release of the album, in an interview the band said it was incredibly hard releasing the album on their own and because of that they were never going to do that again. However, they ended up releasing their following next FIVE albums (all of them to date) on their Dallas Tarr label.

Black Hole's 2011 Behind the Gravestone 3 CD demo compilation was released on AreaDeath, a Chinese label who had only released one doom metal album otherwise, by a funeral deathdoom band. The compilation would've made far more sense on a few other labels that did other Black Hole reissues around the same time, such as Andromeda Relix, Shadow Kingdom Records, or High Roller Records.

reverend bizarre were signed to spinefarm, owned by universal (a multinational). through the years of their relatively brief activity, they had also released stuff on labels like rise above, etc. then, on the year of their "death", they decide to officially release a "lost" demo. who do they sign with? a chilean death metal label. it resulted in one of the largest known scams/ripoffs in metal history, as the label delayed the release by a year, then decided to resell the copies (instead of sending them to those who had already pre-ordered them). there's more to the story... currently the top post on the RB fb page is on topic.

Rigor Mortis self titled was released on Capitol records if i'm not mistaken. so surreal that a badass debut record like that was released on one of the heavy hitters without the sound of the band compromised. i'm assuming Mike Scaccia's Al Jourgensen connection might have been part of that whole deal, but i'm not sure if he was even in Ministry at that point.

RB were already signed to Spinefarm/Spikefarm when Universal acquired the company. Guess who also were signed to Spinefarm then? Nightwish. So it's not really odd, just coincidental.

erm, did you read the whole thing? the point was that a band signed to a multinational and who could have "given" the demo to basically any doom label at the time, chose an obscure, distant and unrelated one and ended up costing their fans a lot of money... it wasn't about the spinefarm deal

Kreator had their albums be released on a major label in the late 1980s/early 1990s in North America.

Cradle Of Filth released "Damnation And A Day" on Sony, which was their first full length after "Midian" was on Music For Nations. I think the follow up, "Nymphetamine" was on Roadrunner, so their time on a major didn't last very long.

In Flames released Siren Charms on Sony before running back to Nuclear Blast.

Manilla Road on XYZ. For such a long running band I don't find the distribution of this label to be very good.

The post above reminded me of when Motorhead released Bastards on ZYX Music, a German label specialized in disco/techno/house releases.

which also happens to be their best album in my book.

And it also explains why I almost never find copies of Bastards at any local record/CD shops around here.

Probably never got reissued, and probably whoever owns Motorhead's catalog may not be able to do so.

it's definitely been reissued on vinyl, the LP edition is widely available for cheap (at least here in germany). holla back at me if you need a copy of this.

Steamhammer and Metal Mind both did cd reissues; not sure how handy they might be to come by nowadays, though.

Why is that weird? Thrash metal was at the height of its popularity and labels wanted to cash in on the next Metallica/Slayer. And back in those days there were only a handful of independent metal labels in the world; almost everything was connected to a Major.

Tons of metal more extreme than Kreator is released on major labels even today. Roadrunner, Spinefarm, and Century Media are subsidiaries of Warner/Universal/Sony.