Legion of Grandeur fuse symphonic orchestration with black and death metal extremity into an outsized, cinematic sound built since 2012. Grandiose by design and uncompromising in execution, they treat the epic as an obligation rather than an indulgence.

Sacramento's Legion of Malice have been thrashing the Northern California death and grind underground since forming in 2023, spitting out short, venomous bursts of noise with maximum hostility. Two minutes at a time, they leave little standing.

Philadelphia's Legions of Eligos arrived in 2026 summoning demonic namesake in black and death metal hammered through grindcore's brevity and force. The city's extreme metal underground has a new entry that wastes no time on subtlety.

Named for one of the world's most venomous scorpions, Melbourne, Florida's Leiurus inject progressive ambition into their blackened death metal, taking the genre into longer, more compositionally complex territory since forming in 2022. The venom is just as potent for being patient.

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.