San Francisco's Skin Horse has been wading through thick sludge and crushing doom since 2016, drawing on the Bay Area's fertile heavy underground to craft slow, oppressive music with the weight of the Pacific behind it.

Huntington, West Virginia's Skincarver has been churning out sludge-drenched doom since 2016, embodying the heaviness that comes naturally to a hard-luck Appalachian city with a long history of hardship and a taste for music that doesn't flinch.

Heavy Sludge / Death Metal / Hardcore out of Texas.

Corona, California's Skinslip work the intersection of sludge and doom, conjuring slow, weight-bearing riffs that reflect the smoggy, sun-bleached desolation of the Inland Empire since their formation in 2014.

Fresno's Skull Incision have been active since 2010, working in the ugly overlap between death metal, grindcore, and sludge — a combination that makes for short, punishing tracks coated in downtuned filth and California Central Valley grime.

Winston-Salem's Skullcollector have been wallowing in the tar-thick overlap of doom, sludge, and stoner metal since 2013 — a North Carolina act that favors bone-heavy riffs, deliberate tempos, and a tone that sounds permanently coated in smoke.

Denver's Skully Mammoth have been hauling sludge metal's tar-slow riffs through Colorado since 2011, channeling the suffocating heaviness associated with acts like Eyehategod and Crowbar. The band builds around massive, deliberate tempos and a tone that sounds like it's been dragged through miles of mountain grime.

Le Claire, Iowa's Sky Hunter formed in 2009 along the Mississippi River and deal in the slow-burn convergence of sludge and post-metal — long-form songs built on distorted heaviness that gradually opens into something more expansive and atmospheric. Their Midwest setting lends a particular isolation and bleakness to the material.

Sacramento's Sky Pig have been combining stoner, sludge, and doom metal since 2018, trafficking in slow-grinding riffs soaked in fuzz and feedback that nod equally to Electric Wizard and Saint Vitus. The band occupies the fertile Central Valley heavy underground, where volume is treated as a virtue unto itself.