Sandy, Utah's Destructinator formed in 2019 playing power/speed/thrash metal, the trifecta of velocity and epic ambition that defined the 1980s metal underground. Their music favors the melodic hook and the full-speed riff, channeling the bombast of bands that made the genre feel genuinely larger than life.

Forged in Chicago in 2021, Doomsday tears through the Midwest underground with a ferocious blend of speed and thrash metal that draws as much from early Slayer as from the first wave of power-speed crossovers. Their riffs hit with the urgency of a city that never coddles its heavy music, all breakneck tempos and serrated guitar work that leaves little room to breathe. It's lean, mean thrash built for the pit.

Out of Russellville, Arkansas, Dr. Butcher has been dealing in a particularly nasty strain of goregrind and death metal since 2011, built on surgical-grade brutality and an almost comedically grim aesthetic. The band's dedication to the uglier end of the death-grind spectrum keeps things deliberately primitive and visceral, with no interest in polish or subtlety.

Formed in 2024 out of Union, New Jersey, DTA came out of the gate swinging with the kind of urgent, no-frills aggression that defined early speed metal before thrash hardened its edges. Their sound splits the difference between the breakneck tempos of classic NWOBHM-influenced speed metal and the crunchier, pit-ready riff structures of East Coast thrash. A young band with teeth already showing.

Los Angeles's Early Man has been a reliable deliverer of meat-and-potatoes heavy/speed/thrash metal since 2004, with a sound that wears its classic influences openly and plays them with genuine muscle.

Asheville's Earth Collider came together in 2019 to deliver tight, ripping speed and thrash metal from a mountain town that punches far above its weight in the underground. Expect fast riffs and no wasted space.

please update this band

Highstown, New Jersey's Elegia have been delivering traditional power and speed metal since 2010, their songs built around soaring melodic ambition and the kind of riff gallop that lives somewhere between Running Wild and Riot.

Phoenix's Ellefson — fronted by former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson — channels old-school thrash and speed metal energy with the authority of someone who helped define the genre in the first place.