Named after the mythic Norse sword that cannot be sheathed without drawing blood, Boston's Dainsleif fuse melodic death metal's sweeping intensity with folk metal's ancient melodic sensibility. One of the newer acts to emerge from the New England scene, formed in 2025.

Seattle's DoomHawk have been one of the Pacific Northwest's most eclectic extreme metal acts since 2007, weaving folk instrumentation through the twin brutalities of death and black metal to conjure something genuinely strange and ancient-feeling. Their long tenure in Seattle's heavy underground spans nearly two decades, giving them a maturity and stylistic range few local contemporaries can match. The folk elements add an earthy, pagan quality that cuts against the genre's more urban and industrial impulses.

Taking their name from Jewish folklore's restless spirit, Boulder, Colorado's Dybbuk have woven together Viking, folk, and black metal since 2012, creating a distinctly atmospheric brand of pagan metal grounded in mythological imagery and sweeping melodic sensibility.

Formed in 2014 in Bend, Oregon, Dysperium fuses black metal's harsh, windswept atmosphere with folk metal's melodic and acoustic sensibilities, carving out a sound that suits the high desert and forested Pacific Northwest. The project balances aggression with an organic, earthen quality.

Boston atmospheric folk/black metal act formed in 2016, Dzö-nga weaves Himalayan folklore and indigenous mythologies into a sound built on sweeping black metal atmospherics and folk instrumentation. Their work is among the more culturally specific and spiritually rooted in the American black metal underground.

Brookfield, Illinois's Earthen has been crafting an unusual folk/gothic metal hybrid with ambient threads since 2005, a project that moves at its own pace and defies easy categorization in the Chicago suburb's quiet underground.

One of the more singular voices in American underground metal, Olympia's Echtra has spent over two decades weaving atmospheric black metal, drone, and folk into meditative, earth-bound compositions that defy easy categorization.

Grand Rapids, Michigan's Eissturm blends black metal with folk and ambient textures, crafting music that evokes the wooded isolation of the Great Lakes region since 2013. Pagan themes and wintry atmosphere run through their output in equal measure.

A Virginia folk/black metal project formed in 2021, Eldaskal weaves pagan melodic sensibility through black metal's fury. The name evokes the Old Norse tradition of skalds — poet-singers — a fitting emblem for music that values lyricism and storytelling.