Houston's Day of Reckoning pull from progressive metalcore and groove metal in equal measure, a combination that suits the city's taste for technically accomplished but physically punishing music. Formed in 2015, they've developed a sound with enough forward momentum to keep pace with the state's most demanding stages.

Dauphin, Pennsylvania's Day of Wrath lay into groove metal's mid-tempo churn with focused, blunt-instrument intensity. Since 2019, they've built their sound around the kind of pummeling riff dynamics that demand a physical response from an audience.

Michigan's Dead Against carve out a hybrid niche where melodic death metal hooks collide with groove-driven chugs and metalcore structure, drawing on influences from Gothenburg to the American midwest. Their music hits hard and lingers through the melody.

Coming out of Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border, Dead Albatross combine groove-laden rhythms with melodic death metal sensibility — a sound shaped as much by the region's gritty heat as by Scandinavian influences.

Northridge, California's Dead Alive meld melodic death metal's emotive sweep with groove metal's physical punch and metalcore's structural dynamics. Their sound moves fluidly between atmospheric melody and outright brutality.

Ferocious Thrash / Groove Metal from Austin.

Las Vegas' Dead Element bring a melodic edge to their thrash and groove metal palette, crafting songs that hit with purpose behind the glitz and excess of the desert city's entertainment landscape. Sharp hooks live inside dense, riff-heavy arrangements.

California's Dead Icarus weld groove metal's rhythmic swagger to metalcore's structural punch, arriving in 2023 with a sound that hits hard and moves hard. Their name promises a fall from grace, and the music delivers it.

Bandon, Oregon's Dead Nedry have been serving up hard-hitting groove metal from the wild Oregon Coast since 2011, built on heavy, mid-paced riffs that hit with the force of the Pacific storms off the southern shoreline. They're a fixture of Oregon's underrated metal underground.