Chicago thrash-metalcore band Hurtlocker formed in 1998 and released a series of demos before issuing Fear in a Handful of Dust (2005) and Embrace the Fall (2007) on Napalm Records. Their sound bridged the aggressive thrash metal of the Bay Area with the metalcore aggression prominent in the mid-2000s American heavy scene. The band has since dissolved, leaving behind a compact catalog that reflected the crossover moment between those two worlds.

Castle Rock, Colorado's Hämärä — Finnish for "twilight" or "dim" — bring a brooding intensity to their metalcore that earns the name. Formed in 2019, they craft emotionally charged, hard-hitting songs that sit in that uncomfortable space between light and dark.

I Am Heresy formed in 2011 in Delaware as a new project from Nathan Gray, known for his work in boysetsfire and The Casting Out, with his son Simon Gray also among the members. Their self-titled debut (2012) channeled the passionate fury of early boysetsfire filtered through the metallic hardcore of Integrity and Converge, and a second album followed in 2014. The project carries the politically and personally engaged songwriting approach Gray established through his earlier work.

Ripping Progressive Death Metal / Metalcore from Denton.

Nashville's answer to the crossroads of southern grit and metalcore aggression, channeling courthouse swagger and chainsaw riffs into a sound that feels like a front-porch confrontation gone sideways.

Grief-stricken metalcore from Denton.

Wisconsin thrash/death metallers from Silver Lake who have been tearing through the rural Midwest since 2016, fusing the neck-snapping momentum of thrash with the malevolent texture of death metal.

Brooklyn's Ikillya has spent over a decade sharpening a sound that pits thrash aggression against metalcore intensity and groove metal swagger, forging something street-hardened and distinctly New York.

St. Louis metalcore outfit Immolate have built a reputation in Missouri's underground since 2011 — heavy enough to satisfy death metal ears, structured enough to deliver genuine hooks.