Grand Rapids, Michigan NWOTHM project. The Latin name — roughly 'acts of men' — adds classical weight to West Michigan metal.

New York City crossover thrash, hardcore punk, and thrash metal project. The name promises catalytic energy from the city that never stops.

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin / Mount Prospect, Illinois death metal project. The biblical reference to demon-possessed pigs driven off a cliff channels sacrilege through Midwest extremity.

Buford, Georgia groove metal project. The legal term for a guilty act adds courtroom drama to Atlanta-area heaviness.

Acualli is a death and black metal band from Long Beach, California. With nine releases to their name, the band has built a substantial body of work that draws from Mesoamerican themes and imagery, filtered through a lens of extreme blackened death metal.

Acursian is a melodic black metal project from College Grove, Tennessee. Across two releases, the project blends melodic guitar work with the raw intensity of black metal, set against the backdrop of rural Middle Tennessee.

Pennsylvania grindcore project named after kidney inflammation. Medical horror channeled through grinding extremity.

Acutor is a thrash/black metal band from Bogotá, Colombia, formed in 1993 and regarded as a seminal force in the Latin American metal underground. Their 1997 debut album "Dios Ha Muerto" — sung entirely in Spanish with nihilistic and anti-religious lyrics inspired by Nietzschean philosophy — established them as one of the genre's earliest and most distinctive voices on the continent. They have shared stages with major Colombian and international metal acts and remain active on the Viuda Negra Music label.

Ad Astra is a death and black metal project from St. Mary's County, Maryland. Remarkably prolific with twelve releases, the project explores the cosmic and the extreme through a relentless output of blackened death metal.