Los Angeles's Cult of the Damned carry the torch for classic power and speed metal in a city more often associated with death and black metal extremity. The band channels the high-energy, melodic aggression of the genre's golden era into a sound that is both propulsive and anthemic.

Denver's Cult of the Lost Cause are a fully instrumental post-metal quartet who sculpt dynamic, adventurously structured songs from frigid, metallic guitar tones and commanding volume shifts. Since 2011, they've drawn comparisons to Rosetta, ISIS, and Russian Circles while staking their own territory in the Denver underground.

Seattle's Cult of Yog conjure Lovecraftian dread through venomous, bestial black/death metal rooted in the Pacific Northwest's tradition of cavernous, atmospheric extremity. Their self-titled 2021 EP announced a band channeling the darkness of Cascadia into riff-heavy, cosmically hostile metal.

Ocala, Florida's Cultellarii are a female-fronted doom outfit whose sludgy, pitch-black sound draws on Cathedral, Celtic Frost, and Type O Negative to explore themes of gender dysphoria and institutional oppression. Their 2013 album Black Urth Cabal makes clear they are as interested in lyrical weight as they are in gravitational heaviness.

York, Pennsylvania husband-and-wife duo Cultic fuse early death/doom, first-wave black metal, and punk into what they call dungeon doom — a battle-scarred sound decorated with dark fantasy themes, dungeon synth interludes, and martial industrial textures. Released via Eleventh Key Records, their 2025 album Lore is their most fully realized entry into this singular aesthetic.

Columbus, Ohio's Cultists work within the death/doom tradition, building heavy, suffocating compositions that balance the slow crawl of classic doom with the brutality of death metal. The Ohio band operates independently, adding to a Columbus extreme metal scene that has produced some of the most punishing underground acts in the Midwest.

Culto Licántropo is a black metal band from Bogotá, Colombia. Signed to Sacrilegio Records, they released their debut EP "Culto licántropo eterno" in 2024.

Herndon, Virginia's Cultum Draculesti are a duo devoted to vampyric black/doom metal that prioritizes slow, doomish tempos and an atmosphere of Gothic darkness over raw aggression. Formed in 2020 from the ashes of Spinster City, their self-titled 2021 debut established a sound of atmospheric rawness steeped in mythology, death, and darkened beauty.

New Orleans's Cultum Nocte apply the Crescent City's longstanding tradition of extreme, ritualistic metal to a black/death framework, producing music that carries the oppressive humidity and occult atmosphere of their surroundings. The Louisiana band operates as part of a local underground that has always thrived at metal's most uncompromising edges.