Named for the treacherous figure of Welsh mythology, Phoenix's Efnisien channels pure black metal menace since 2020, standing apart in the Arizona desert with a name that reaches back to ancient darkness.

Named for the Aztec wind god, Bay Area's Ehecatl channels atmospheric black metal with a conceptual depth that matches the name's mythological weight — cold, expansive, and active since 2015 in California's rich underground.

New Haven's Ehrgeizig — the German word for "ambitious" — has been shaping black metal in Connecticut since 2022, drawing on Germanic vocabulary and the atmosphere one expects from a college town with a Gothic architecture and an art scene that takes darkness seriously.

Grand Rapids' Eichenwald — "oak forest" in German — has cultivated dark ambient and atmospheric black metal since 2016, their Michigan home lending the project a natural severity of season and landscape that bleeds into every note.

Pennsylvania's Eidolon has been constructing funeral doom with the patience the subgenre demands since 1992, one of the longer-running practitioners of death in slow motion — a ghost form that refuses to dissipate.

Olympia, Washington's Eigenlicht — "intrinsic light" — has been practicing black metal with a raw, Northern European seriousness since 2015, emerging from a city more associated with indie rock but building something colder and more ritualistic.

A raw black metal project out of Joliet, Illinois, Eighten Neintres emerged in 2021 with a lo-fi, caustic approach rooted in the underground traditions of the genre. Corrosive production and stripped-down hostility are the calling cards here.

Ein Schwarzes Kreuz — German for "a black cross" — formed in Sacramento in 2021, channeling a cold and austere brand of black metal that leans into the genre's more ceremonial and oppressive traditions.

A location-unknown black metal entity formed in 2021, Einmal operates in the shadows of the American underground with deliberate anonymity. The project's name — German for "once" — hints at an aesthetic of singular, uncompromising intent.