Tacoma, Washington's Lenore have been marrying deathcore's crushing breakdowns to death metal's ferocity since 2016, drawing on the Pacific Northwest's tradition of heavy music that doesn't need sunshine to thrive. Bleak, heavy, and built to punish.

Los Angeles death metal outfit Lepra have been rotting through the City of Angels' underground since 2019, offering no melodic concessions and no apologies. Old-school in instinct, unrelenting in practice.

Champaign, Illinois's Leproso have been festering at the fringes of the Midwest death metal underground since 2010, keeping it deliberately ugly and deliberately heavy. University towns breed unlikely extremists, and this is their band.

Pittsburgh's Leprosy began as a thrash band in 2021 before the rot set in and death metal claimed them fully — a natural arc for a city whose metal history runs from Carnivore to the present. Heavy, grim, and unsentimental.

Two-plus decades deep in the Oxnard underground, Lesion grind out a raw hybrid of thrash and death metal that carries the working-class grit of Southern California's surf-and-steel coast.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's Lest We Forget began as deathcore bruisers before expanding into progressive metalcore territory — their evolution mirrors the slow, deliberate weight of their Steel Belt hometown.

Cape Cod's most noxious export, Leukorrhea have been unleashing Cape Cod-spawned brutal death metal since 2016 — technically repulsive and proudly uncompromising in the Massachusetts underground.

Atlanta's Levitation soar through progressive power metal with a Southern confidence, pairing intricate arrangements and dynamic shifts with the kind of clean vocal muscle that fills Georgia arenas.

Liberteer is the solo grindcore project of Santa Cruz, California musician Matthew Widener, better known for his work in Exhumed and Cretin, formed around 2011. Their sole album Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees (2012, Relapse Records) is a dense political statement rooted in anarchist philosophy, notable for grafting brass instruments, banjo, and mandolin onto a blasting death-grind foundation. The project remains a curio of the early 2010s extreme metal underground for its ideological commitment and unusual instrumentation.