Andrew W.K. is an American musician and entertainer, born Andrew Wilkes-Krier in Michigan in 1979, who built a career around maximalist party rock fusing heavy metal riffing, glam energy, and pop melodicism. His 2001 debut I Get Wet on Island Records, anchored by the anthemic "Party Hard," became a cult classic and established his persona as an unironic apostle of positivity and excess. He has released six studio albums through 2021, including God Is Partying, while also maintaining a career as a motivational speaker and public figure.

North Royalton, Ohio power metal project with a sense of humor and four releases since 2015. From the provocatively titled Electric Male Discharge to the noise-referencing Harsh Metal Wall, they blend power metal bombast with irreverent energy from the Cleveland suburbs.

New York City death metal enigma whose 2013 debut Cosmic Collision Into The Fifth Dimension launches into interstellar extremity. The name alone — part alien taxonomy, part fever dream — signals a band operating far outside conventional death metal's orbit.

Charlotte black metal project from the North Carolina underground.

Montana / Bancroft black metal project from the Michigan underground.

Chicago and Oklahoma City doom metal collaboration channeling existential dread since 2021. Their full-length How to Look Forward to the Apocalypse pairs a darkly humorous title with genuinely crushing doom, while Life In Jars suggests a more intimate, claustrophobic heaviness.

Quakertown sludge metal project from the Pennsylvania underground.

McNabb, Illinois black metal project named after the feeling of nostalgia for a time you never experienced. Their two albums — memories you never had and autumn rains — deliver atmospheric, melancholic black metal from rural Illinois, the lowercase titles reflecting a deliberately understated aesthetic.

Savage Black / Death Metal out of Texas.