Fair Lawn, New Jersey's Epithet weave symphonic grandeur through melodic black and death metal, constructing music with the sweeping ambition suggested by their name. Since 2016, they've brought a cinematic quality to the extreme metal underground.

Morgan Hill, California's Epoch pursue progressive metal with the structural ambition the name implies, building music designed to mark distinct artistic eras rather than tread familiar ground. Active since 2020, they're carving out a distinctive voice in the Bay Area-adjacent prog scene.

Memphis's Epoch of Unlight have been one of the most distinctive voices in American melodic black/death metal since 1995, crafting music that channels the genre's Scandinavian roots while remaining rooted in the American South. Three decades in, their catalog stands as a landmark of domestic extreme metal.

Washington State's Equilibrium have been navigating black metal's cold terrain since 2001, channeling the Pacific Northwest's atmospheric bleakness into raw, uncompromising music. Their catalog reflects the region's tradition of isolation-bred intensity.

Conjured from the forests of Nevada County in the Sierra Nevada foothills, this Northern California black metal act captures the isolation and cold fury of the mountains in its sound.

Los Angeles black/death metal project Ere emerged in 2020 from the city's restless underground, combining corrosive blackened tremolo with death metal's visceral physicality in a sound built on purposeful density.

Birmingham, Alabama black/death metal act steeped in the South's tradition of heavy, dark extremity — a city with steel in its bones and a metal underground that has always punched above its weight.

Madison's symphonic black metal counterpart to their city's groove metal namesake, this Wisconsin outfit layers orchestral grandeur over icy black metal aggression with theatrical ambition.

Salt Lake City atmospheric black metal project named for the Shadowy Mountains of Tolkien's First Age, Ered Wethrin conjures vast, wind-swept epics from Utah's high desert that feel genuinely ancient and mythic.