Milwaukee death metal newcomers Outer Graves arrived in 2023, already reaching for the darkest end of the spectrum. Wisconsin's metal underground has always rewarded uncompromising brutality, and this outfit seems intent on earning their place in it. Still early in their trajectory, but the foundation is unambiguously grim.

Outer Heaven is a death metal band from Douglassville, Pennsylvania, formed in 2012 and signed to Relapse Records. Their 2018 debut Realms of Eternal Decay established them as one of the stronger voices in contemporary American death metal, drawing on cavernous production and punishing riffs indebted to old-school Florida and New York death metal. The band has continued releasing material, including the covers album In Tribute, paying homage to Repulsion, Morbid Angel, Pig Destroyer, Mortician, and Death.

Devastating Death Metal / Grindcore out of Texas.

Los Angeles-based Ovterminus have been threading progressive ambition through death metal brutality since 2011, arriving at a sound that shifts between technical savagery and melodic architecture with deliberate purpose. Their melodic/progressive death metal draws on the Swedish tradition while adding an LA density — complex song structures that reward close listening without sacrificing the gut-punch.