Vorpal Sword emerged from Louisville, Kentucky in 2017 as a vicious hybrid of black metal, punk, and noise. The band channels the raw confrontational energy of the Louisville underground, dragging black metal's grimness through abrasive punk grit and corroded noise textures. Their sound is less concerned with atmosphere than with controlled aggression and sonic damage.

Out of Oakland, California since 2016, Vortex of Narvik operates in the suffocating register of depressive black metal layered with ambient drift. The name evokes the desolate Arctic port city that became a symbol of brutal attrition, and the music follows suit — long, spiraling compositions that trade in anguish and cold isolation. Ambient passages erode into raw black metal without warning, keeping the listener perpetually off-balance.

Votan has been channeling epic black metal out of Corpus Christi, Texas since 2016, drawing on the mythological resonance of the Mesoamerican deity their name invokes. The South Texas coastal setting is an unlikely crucible for this kind of sweeping, grandiose black metal, which makes the project's ambitions feel more singular. Their compositions reach for the kind of mythic grandeur associated with European epic black metal while remaining rooted in their own cultural context.

Connecticut's Vouroborus have been fusing blackened death metal and grindcore since 2015, carving out a niche in the dense, chaotic overlap between those extremes. The band's name evokes the ouroboros — the serpent consuming itself — which fits a sound built on cycles of escalating brutality and collapsing structure. Their approach draws equally from death metal's heaviness, black metal's atmosphere, and grindcore's violent concision.

Seattle's Vulgaris formed in 2019, drawing on both the city's heavy music heritage and the Pacific Northwest's overcast gloom to craft a sound that moves between doom metal's funeral-paced weight and traditional heavy metal's hooks. The tension between those two poles keeps the material unpredictable.

Barely a year old, Vulnera arose from the rural quiet of Hallstead, Pennsylvania in 2024, pursuing a strain of depressive black metal that leans heavily on atmosphere and desolation. The isolation of small-town northeastern Pennsylvania seems to inform every note of their bleak, introspective sound.

Kansas City's Vulpecula have been operating at the intersection of black and death metal since 2020, weaving ambient textures into their otherwise abrasive framework. The name — a small, faint constellation — hints at a project more interested in negative space and atmosphere than brute force alone.

Omaha's Vulthoom have been practicing raw black metal since 2018, operating far from any established scene with the self-sufficient ferocity that defines the midwest underground. Their output is deliberately primitive — scraping away anything that might soften the freezing, hostile core.

Toledo, Ohio black metal project formed in 2020, invoking Slavic mythological imagery through a raw and atmospheric approach to the genre. The name references Veles, the underworld deity of Slavic paganism, suggesting a thematic focus on death, nature, and ancient spiritual darkness.