Kissimmee, Florida's Tooms emerged in 2018 grafting groove metal's hip-swinging heaviness onto a metalcore skeleton, resulting in the kind of melodic, rhythmically locked sound that translates well in a live setting. Their MA genre tag of "melodic groove metal/metalcore" captures the balance precisely.

Torch Jaw come from Tehachapi, California — a small desert town in the mountains south of the San Joaquin Valley — and forge a hybrid sound that draws from groove metal's rhythmic authority, deathcore's sonic brutality, and traditional heavy metal's riff-centric sensibility. Formed in 2021, they represent the kind of geographically isolated band that pushes genre boundaries out of creative necessity.

Torn Away from Flint, Michigan formed in 2018, playing heavy and groove metal with the thick, working-class energy that defines their city's cultural character. Their sound favors mid-paced, crushing heaviness over technicality — direct, physical, and unpretentious.

A Concord, California groove/thrash outfit active since 2005, Torque channels the mid-90s Bay Area chug with locked-in rhythmic heaviness and thrash-driven aggression.

Bradenton, Florida's Torque blends groove metal's mid-tempo punch with industrial metal's mechanical textures and thrash-inflected bite, carving out a hard-edged sound since 2005.

Ottawa, Illinois' Torque merges groove metal's rhythmic heaviness with traditional heavy metal's melodic sensibility, a working-class Midwest metal act formed in 2005.

Boise, Idaho's Torrent fuses groove metal's lockstep heaviness with death metal's aggression, a straightforward and punishing act formed in 2014.

Haworth, New Jersey's Torrential Downpour takes groove metal in a technical direction, layering intricate rhythmic shifts beneath heavy, momentum-driven riffwork since 2009.

Medford, Oregon's Tortured Souls operate in the groove-inflected thrash lane, pairing chugging mid-tempo riffs with the swaggering weight of groove metal in a style that has defined much of the American post-'90s thrash revival.