Features Firewind vocalist Kelly Sundown Carpenter and guitarist Michael Harris. Sophomore album mixed by legendary producer Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy).

Orlando's Darkrealm work the fertile overlap between progressive metal and post-metal, crafting spacious, evolving compositions that favor atmosphere and structural ambition over brute force since 2022. They're part of a Florida scene diverse enough to sustain introspective, texturally driven heavy music alongside its more extreme neighbors.

Out of Independence, Missouri, Darkside have been threading progressive ambition through traditional heavy metal since 2013, building songs that trade in shifting time signatures and melodic grandeur without losing the punch of the genre's roots.

New Jersey progressive metal project Dassven channel the genre's appetite for intricacy and emotional depth, constructing layered compositions that reward close listening since their 2020 formation.

Bloomington, Indiana guitarist and composer David Brewster has been merging progressive metal's structural ambition with neoclassical shred technique since 2004, producing a body of work that rewards both the headphones-deep listener and the technically inclined.

Saratoga Springs, Utah multi-instrumentalist David Lyon weaves djent-driven rhythmic precision into a tapestry of progressive and symphonic metal, a sweeping and technically demanding sonic vision he's been developing since 2004.

Asheville, North Carolina's Dawn of Dismality bend progressive metal's expansive tendencies into the visceral frame of death metal, yielding something genuinely restless and unpredictable. Formed in 2021, they reflect their mountain city's growing reputation for adventurous heavy music.

Oakland's Dawn of Ouroboros pursue progressive post-black metal with an open-ended curiosity that sets them apart from their Bay Area peers. Since 2019, they've built a sound of cyclical intensity — introspective, dissonant, and deeply textured, much like their serpent-devouring-itself namesake.

San Jose's Dawning merge progressive metal's structural ambition with the bleakness of black and doom metal, resulting in music that shifts between introspection and devastation. Active since 2022, the band approaches the Bay Area's heavy scene from an angle all their own.