Portland, Oregon's Witch Mountain are one of the most respected names in American traditional doom, having rebuilt themselves around 2011 with an emphasis on powerful, blues-rooted riffing and commanding vocal performances. They occupy a space where classic doom meets Southern rock swagger, slow and hypnotic without sacrificing genuine emotional weight. Over more than a decade they have proven themselves one of the Pacific Northwest's essential heavy acts.

A very recent arrival from Santa Cruz, California, Witch Whores of Satan formed in 2024 and lean into the fuzz-soaked stoner doom aesthetic with a name that signals absolutely no interest in subtlety. Santa Cruz's countercultural coastal identity feeds naturally into their hazy, riff-forward approach. Still in their earliest days, they are already carving out space in the California underground with pure heaviness.

Portland, Oregon's Witchbones have been operating since 2014 in the slow-moving territory where death metal meets funeral doom — crushing, suffocating, and utterly deliberate. Their sound eschews speed for density, piling on layers of guttural heaviness that demand patience from the listener. They are a fixture of Portland's consistently strong underground metal scene.

San Antonio doom metal with soaring vocals. Classic doom with a Texas edge.

Indianapolis, Indiana's Witchdoctor have been practicing their craft since 2015, offering slow-moving doom metal rooted in the traditional side of the genre — heavy riffs, mournful atmosphere, minimal frills. Indianapolis has a quietly strong doom underground, and Witchdoctor represent its more workmanlike and uncompromising strand. Their Bandcamp presence under the "witchdoctor3" handle suggests a band that keeps its focus squarely on the music.

Kent, Ohio's Witchhelm have been hauling heavy doom and stoner riffs since 2014, working in the warm, fuzz-drenched tradition that owes as much to Black Sabbath as to the later stoner metal wave. Kent and the surrounding Northeast Ohio area have a quiet but real heavy music tradition, and Witchhelm are among its most committed representatives. Their sound is patient and immersive — music built for volume.

Bay Shore, New York's Witchtripper have been plying their trade in stoner doom since 2016, bringing Long Island into a genre conversation usually dominated by the American South and West. Their sound is rooted in heavy psychedelic grooves and slow-burn riff cycles that reward cranking the volume in a dark room. They are a consistent presence in the New York-area underground heavy music world.

Nashville, Tennessee's Withdrawn formed in 2021 in the bleak overlap between doom, sludge, and death metal — a combination that turns the misery dial up considerably. Nashville is better known for country and Americana, which makes the emergence of a genuinely crushing doom/death act there all the more striking. Their sound is heavy in the way that feels earned rather than performed.

Witnesses blur the line between doom metal and ambient electronic music, weaving glacially slow, melodic heaviness with textural soundscapes that lend their songs an almost cinematic scale. Their NYC Bandcamp handle grounds them in that city's experimental underground, where genre orthodoxy has never been sacred. Formed in 2017, they're a rare act that can make a drone feel both crushing and eerily beautiful.