Memphis's HellThrasher collide black metal, death metal, and crust punk into a grimy, feral hybrid since 2017 — the kind of music that sounds like it was recorded in a condemned building and means every second of it. Southern heat filtered through pitch-black nihilism.

Occult blackened death/doom from the Ordo Satanae Imperium collective. Shares members with Nyogthaeblisz and Nexul. Two albums on Iron Bonehead Productions.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Helpless Agony arrived in 2024 with death metal forged in the blue-collar grit of central PA — compact, brutal, and already showing a confidence beyond their young tenure. A band with no interest in easing anyone in gently.

Formed in Mentor, Ohio in 1993, Hemdale were a grind-gore band whose abrasive extremity and relentless live performances earned them a significant underground following before a 1997 split. The band's 1996 split release with Exhumed, In the Name of Gore, remains a key document of the era, and their network extended through drummer Craig Rowe's Visceral Productions, which played a role in the early careers of Nile, Exhumed, and Dying Fetus. Hemdale reformed in 2013 with vocalist and guitarist Matthew Rositano as the sole original member.

Brooklyn's Hemzeodysnexia arrived in 2022 with a mouthful of a name and a brutal death metal sound to match — dense, merciless, and technically ferocious, staking out their corner of New York's underground with immediate ferocity.

Burlington, Vermont's Heralds of Galaktus bring cosmic-scale destruction down to a very terrestrial grindcore and death metal assault since 2018, naming themselves after a Marvel titan of annihilation while sounding like they could cause some themselves. Short, sharp, and obliterating.

New York's Heretic Bodyhammer arrived in 2022 with a death metal attack that the name describes better than most press releases could — blunt, aggressive, and deliberately mechanical in its devastation. They hit like the instrument in question.

Atlanta's Heretical Rites blend blackened death metal into something caustic and ceremonial since their 2024 inception, approaching the genre's darkest traditions with a sense of ritual purpose. Georgia's underground gains a genuinely malevolent new voice.

Fresno's Heritage of Rebellion arrived in 2023 with death metal grounded in the Central Valley's blue-collar discontent — straightforward in its violence, unpretentious in its execution, and built to be played loud. A band that earns the defiance in their name.