Lycus formed in Oakland, California in 2008, operating in the most extreme end of the funeral doom spectrum while incorporating textures from black metal, noise, and shoegaze. Their debut LP Tempest (2013) featured three massive tracks ranging from ten to twenty minutes, drawing comparisons to Mournful Congregation and Asunder. The follow-up Chasms (2016), recorded at Atomic Garden Studios with producer Jack Shirley, distilled their approach into four immense compositions of deep, deliberate gloom.

Southern California's Lysis have been merging the crawl of doom with death metal's rot since 2008, crafting music from the Inland Empire that sounds like decomposition set to a slow, inevitable tempo. Grief rendered in distortion.

Indianapolis melodic black/death outfit Lysura balance knife-sharp riffing against a melodic sensibility that keeps the music from collapsing into pure brutality, a tension they've been refining since 2012. Cold but never static.

Named for a prehistoric predator, Bend's Lythronax bring an appropriately crushing blend of death metal and deathcore to Oregon's high desert, calibrating their breakdowns and blast beats with the precision of something built to hunt. Active since 2014.