Formed in Denver, Colorado in 2014, Green Druid play a psychedelic strain of stoner doom that leans into Lovecraftian atmosphere and isolationist weight rather than simple Sabbath worship. Their 2018 debut Ashen Blood on Earache Records established the band's slow-burning, riff-heavy approach, followed by At the Maw of Ruin in 2020, which expanded the sonic palette while preserving the fundamental density. The band approaches the genre with enough self-awareness to actively push beyond its conventions.

Named for a Massachusetts peak, Boston's Greylock translate the weight of the New England landscape into sludge-infused doom — massive, slow-moving, and carrying a certain northeastern bleakness. Active since 2015, their sound feels carved from granite.

Founded in 1991 by Disrupt guitarist Terry Savastano and drummer Pete Donovan in Massachusetts, Grief were among the earliest and most uncompromising practitioners of sludge metal, fusing hardcore punk's hostility with doom metal's glacial tempos. Their discography across Pessimiser Records — including Come to Grief (1994) and the sprawling Torso (1998) — documented a distinctly New England strain of depression and aggression. The band dissolved in 2001, citing a hostile environment for doom metal, before briefly reuniting in 2008; Savastano later revived the lineage as Come to Grief.

Raleigh's Grohg have spent over a decade wrestling sludge metal and metalcore together into something heavier and more punishing than either genre alone. Since 2012, they've built a reputation on dense, churning performances that don't let up.

Stoner/sludge metal from Texas.