Venomous Black Metal from Dallas.

Columbus, Ohio's Discretionary Kayoss have been tearing through the crossover thrash playbook since 2020, combining punk's stripped-down aggression with metal's firepower in the tradition the genre was built on. They bring a chaotic energy to the Columbus underground that the city's thriving DIY scene has always made room for.

Grafton, Ohio's Disembodied have been delivering brutal death metal since 2019, carving out their sound in the working-class industrial corridor between Cleveland and Columbus. Their approach is unsparing — blasting, guttural, and built for the kind of listener who measures heaviness in tonnage.

Disembodied Tyrant is a Missouri-based deathcore project that was launched in 2020 by vocalist Donovan Parchment and producer Wilhelm Vickers. After a lineup overhaul that brought vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Blake Mullens to the forefront, the project evolved into one of the more intense acts in the modern deathcore underground. Their punishing sound combines slamming breakdowns with technical precision in a way that appeals to fans of both traditional deathcore and more experimental heavy music.

Ripping Death Metal from Dallas.

Savage Brutal Death Metal from San Marcos.

Columbus, Ohio's Disfigurement have been crafting punishment in the brutal death metal and slam tradition since 2012, wielding the dense, pulverizing riff architecture that defines the Midwest's underground death scene. Their approach leans heavily on the slamming breakdowns and guttural extremity of the slam subgenre, built to level the pit and leave nothing standing.

Out of Rochester, New York, Disgorged emerged in 2019 with a focused mandate: brutal death metal stripped to its most abrasive essentials. Rooted in the tradition of unrelenting blast beats and cavernous low-end brutality, they carry on the Northeast's long lineage of punishing underground death.

Georgetown, California's Disgrace have been channeling the raw, no-frills energy of thrash metal since 2011, operating out of the Sierra Nevada foothills far from the polished Bay Area circuit. Their sound hews to the classic thrash template — aggressive riffing, barked vocals, and the kind of d-beat urgency that keeps the genre's underground roots alive.