Stoner doom institution. 'Age of Winters' put Austin heavy rock on the map.

Chicago's The Unshored weave black metal harshness, doom metal weight, and progressive metal architecture into a cohesive whole since forming in 2015. Their sound is searching and bleak, trading in long-form compositions that move through icy bleakness and crushing low-end in equal measure.

Formed in Nixa, Missouri in 2019, The Valley of Hinnom take their name from the biblical site of sacrifice and channel that gravitas into doom/death metal that is both deliberate and suffocating. Their music moves with funeral weight, leaning into dread rather than aggression.

Austin power trio blending knotty prog, punk, and bluesy doom rock.

Out of Midland, Michigan, The Wizard of Bong Mountain lean into every expectation their name sets — slow, fuzzy stoner doom built for maximum low-end punishment, the kind of riff-worship that makes a virtue of repetition and deliberate, crushing tempo.

Named after the cartilage at the base of the sternum, Denver's The Xiphoid Process have been crafting death/doom metal since 2010, pairing the crushing slow churn of doom with the morbid heaviness of death metal. Their Colorado roots lend a desolate, high-altitude atmosphere to their glacially paced material.

Seattle's Theist have been conjuring a layered, oppressive amalgam of black metal, sludge, and doom since 2015 — a combination that fits naturally in the Pacific Northwest's tradition of slow, heavy, and atmosphere-saturated extreme music. Their sound buries raw black metal hostility under sludge's tar-thick weight and doom's relentless drag.

They Watch Us from the Moon is a stoner/doom metal band from Lawrence, Kansas, formed in 2019, rolling out heavy, fuzz-soaked riffs beneath a cosmic, wide-open-sky atmosphere that feels at home in the flat Kansas landscape. Their sound evokes both earthbound heaviness and a fixation on vast, unknowable distances.

A psychedelic doom outfit from the small Wisconsin town of Hatley, Third Eye Rider pursue the hazy crossroads where stoner riffing and slow, crushing doom converge. Their sound leans into extended, fog-thick arrangements that reward patience over speed.