Ragana are the Olympia duo of Maria and Noel, formed in 2011 and known for expansive heavy music that fuses black metal, doom, sludge, and post-metal atmosphere. Their songs often move between quiet, mournful passages and enormous distorted crescendos, using repetition, stark vocal shifts, and dense guitar textures to create a ritual-like emotional weight. Early releases such as All's Lost, Unbecoming, and Wash Away established the band's austere approach, while later work including You Take Nothing, the Thou split Let Our Names Be Forgotten, and Desolation's Flower broadened their reach without sanding down their intensity. Ragana's music is heavy but not only through speed or aggression; it relies on patience, contrast, and an immersive sense of grief, fury, and endurance. The duo's live and recorded identity is tightly focused, with minimal personnel and a sound that feels both intimate and overwhelming, often stretching metal's boundaries toward dark folk-like atmosphere and cathartic doom.

Ritual Killer are a black metal band from New Orleans, Louisiana, formed in 1999 and featuring current and former members of Goatwhore and Acid Bath, including guitarist Sammy Duet. Operating at the intersection of raw black metal and the sludge-soaked atmosphere of the New Orleans underground, the band released Upon the Threshold of Hell in 2005 and Exterminance in 2015 through Season of Mist.