Santa Clarita's Pain Catalyst fuse groove-heavy riffs with thrash velocity, arriving at a punishing sound rooted in the heavier side of California metal. Formed in 2022, they channel mechanical precision and physical aggression into tightly wound songs.

Holland, Ohio's Paradoxicide channel the neck-snapping rhythmic punch of groove metal and the relentless velocity of thrash into a combined assault since 2021. Their sound is direct and hard-hitting, built for stages rather than headphones.

Madison, Wisconsin's Plant have been sowing stoner groove since 2007, rooting their sound in thick mid-paced riffs and a low-end rumble that owes as much to swamp rock as it does to metal. Unhurried, heavy, and deliberately earthy.

From Saint Marys, Ohio, PolyCrisis weave groove metal's mid-tempo pound together with stoner rock's fuzz and swagger, arriving at something heavy enough for the pit but wide-eyed enough for the couch. Formed in 2023, they're a small-town answer to a question nobody was asking — and the answer turns out to be pretty satisfying.

Wilmington, North Carolina's Predecessor fuse the neck-snapping rhythmic punch of groove metal with the technical aggression of thrash, producing a sound that hits hard and stays heavy. Formed in 2010, the band has spent over a decade sharpening a style that owes as much to the stomping mid-tempo brutality of Pantera as it does to the Bay Area's riff-first attack.

A newcomer out of Fargo, North Dakota, Prediction of the Witch emerged in 2024 pairing the swaggering, down-tuned weight of groove metal with the straightforward punch of traditional heavy metal. Their sound suggests a band more interested in hammering a riff into the ground than in subtlety — a blunt and deliberate approach befitting their ominous name.

Houston's Premonition cast a wide net across the harder end of American metal, blending groove metal's rhythmic menace with thrash's precision attack and the raw momentum of traditional heavy metal. Founded in 2018, they represent the Texas underground's appetite for metal that hits with physicality first, drawing from the region's deep well of heavy music that prizes impact over experimentation.

Probot is the brainchild of Dave Grohl — a sprawling heavy metal superproject that united some of the most iconic voices in underground metal history, including Lemmy Kilmister, Max Cavalera, Wino, and members of Discharge and Sepultura. Operating out of Alexandria, Virginia and drawing from doom, stoner, groove, and classic heavy metal, the project stands as a reverent and thunderous love letter to the genres that shaped Grohl long before Nirvana.

Profits of Doom out of Sebastopol, California grind groove and thrash metal together into a sound that's equal parts neck-snapping rhythm and full-throttle intensity. Founded in 2018, the band leans hard into the mid-paced, syncopated heaviness that defines modern groove metal while injecting enough thrash velocity to keep things volatile. Their northern California origins lend them a certain independent, no-frills spirit that comes through in their muscular, no-nonsense material.

Dallas groove metal outfit Prognosis arrived on the Texas scene in 2018, trading in the heavy, churning mid-tempo riffs and hard-hitting rhythms that define the genre. Rooted in the city's dense and competitive metal community, they bring a raw, live-wire energy to a style that rewards tightness and power over flash. Their groove-centric approach sits naturally within the hard-driving tradition that Texas metal has long excelled at.

Oakland's Project Mayhem AD are a freshly minted groove metal outfit, having formed in 2024 in one of the Bay Area's historically fertile underground scenes. Their sound plants itself firmly in the heavy, riff-driven groove tradition, leaning on the kinetic, physical impact that the style delivers at its best. As a new band in a city with a long and serious metal pedigree, they enter the scene with plenty to prove and a readymade audience of hungry ears.

A very recent entry from Franklin, Kentucky, Propaganda Machine formed in 2024 and hit the ground running with a groove/thrash attack that owes as much to mid-period Pantera as it does to the riff-first mentality of classic Bay Area thrash. The band's name signals the confrontational, politically charged energy that tends to run beneath the surface of their style.

Formed in Columbus, Ohio in 2002, Propulsion have spent over two decades driving groove metal forward with locked-in rhythm work and relentless low-end momentum. Their sound sits firmly in the tradition of mid-tempo heaviness where pocket-tight riffs do the talking.

Jacksonville, Florida's Pseudocidal have been grinding out heavy, mid-tempo groove metal since 2013, leaning into the thick, down-tuned riffing and rhythmic swagger that defines the American groove scene.

Based out of rural southeastern Ohio, Psychomancy formed in 2020 playing a groove-heavy thrash metal hybrid that pulls from the rhythmic muscle of groove metal while keeping the riffing speed and attitude of classic thrash firmly intact.