Minneapolis death-doom outfit Cobra Czar pair crushing low-end heaviness with groove-driven swagger and mid-paced menace. They occupy a filthy intersection of groove metal and death metal that hits hard in the Twin Cities underground.

Muncie, Indiana's Cocaine Culture are a genre-defying chaos engine drawing from black, death, doom, sludge, and alternative metal in equal and unsettling measure. The result is a dense, disorienting sound that refuses easy categorization.

Seattle brutal death and slam metal band Cocksmack deliver punishing low-tuned brutality with the guttural, bowel-shaking intensity that slam devotees crave. They're a nasty entry in the Pacific Northwest's surprisingly strong brutal death underground.

Devastating Death Metal out of Texas.

North Carolina death metal and deathcore act Codex Obscura traffic in punishing heaviness drawn from the darkest corners of extreme metal. They combine the genre's structural aggression with moments of technical brutality.

Cincinnati, Ohio crust-punk and death metal band Coelacanth have been grinding out ferocious, politically charged metal since the early 1990s, earning a cult following in the American underground. Their sound fuses the rawness of crust with the brutality of early death metal.

Nashville, Tennessee black-death metal act Coffin bring a grim, underground aesthetic to Music City's heavy scene, pairing raw black metal atmosphere with death metal brutality. Their music fits firmly in the underground extreme metal tradition.

Trenton, New Jersey death and thrash metal band Coffin deal in fast, aggressive riffs and the kind of no-frills brutality that New Jersey's long thrash tradition demands. They're a street-level act from one of the Northeast's most storied underground scenes.

Portland, Oregon's Coffin Apartment combine death metal's blunt-force attack with sludge metal's suffocating weight, creating a claustrophobic sound that suits their name well. They're part of Portland's dense and genre-spanning extreme metal underground.