Cleveland's Vanik play speed and heavy metal with the gonzo energy of someone who discovered Motörhead and never recovered. Since 2016, they've been delivering short, hard-charging songs that feel like they were written in a garage and meant to be heard very, very loud.

Milwaukee's Victim deal in the turbocharged intersection of speed metal and thrash, where the BPM never drops and the riffs pile up like a freeway crash. Since 2013, they've been one of the Midwest's most reliable sources of pure kinetic damage.

Fort Wayne, Indiana's Vomitkvlt have carved out a niche in the black/speed metal underground since 2015, merging the filth and velocity of early black metal with the leather-and-studs urgency of speed metal's punk-adjacent roots. Their material moves fast and mean, with a lo-fi rawness that suits both genres' contempt for polish.