Richmond, Virginia's Dreamless Veil formed in 2024, bringing black metal to a city with an already fertile extreme metal scene. The name suggests an aesthetic rooted in absence and obscuration, and the band's placement firmly within orthodox black metal indicates a prioritizing of atmosphere and rawness over polish or accessibility. Even in their earliest stage, they represent a serious contribution to Richmond's growing reputation in heavier underground sounds.

Richmond, Virginia's Dreams of Atrocity launched in 2022, blending melodic death metal's harmonic ferocity with the structural aggression of metalcore into something that hits on multiple registers at once. The band occupies a productive middle ground where Gothenburg-influenced melody meets breakdown-ready heaviness, giving their music both emotional reach and physical impact. Coming out of a city with an increasingly visible extreme metal presence, they're part of a new Richmond generation making itself known.

please update this band

New Haven, Connecticut's Dreamwake forged a distinctive sound they call 'wavecore,' blending metalcore aggression with synthwave aesthetics and atmospheric production. Formed in 2018 by former members of In Honor Of, the band treats their music as an escape into a flow state, matching crushing breakdowns with shimmering synth layers. Their fusion of '80s-inspired electronic textures with modern metalcore heaviness gives them a unique sonic identity in an increasingly crowded scene.

Out of Locust Grove, Oklahoma since 2015, Dredge has been delivering slam and brutal death metal from a part of the country most wouldn't expect to produce it — which makes their existence feel like a statement in itself. The band specializes in the genre's most physical vocabulary: churning slam riffs, percussive brutality, and a downtuned low-end density that prioritizes gut-level impact above all else. In a genre defined by extremity, Dredge earns their place through sheer unrelenting weight.

Formed in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2015, Dreichmere weave together the ferocity of black and death metal with the structural ambition of progressive metal — a combination that produces music both technically demanding and atmospherically dense. Their progressive black/death approach resists easy categorization, pushing past genre convention into something distinctly their own.

Named after a shrieking specter from Slavic folklore, Cleveland's Drekavac have been conjuring raw, unpolished black metal since 2013. Their recordings lean into the lo-fi aesthetic that defines the raw black metal underground — cold production, relentless aggression, and an uncompromising hostility toward accessibility.

Raleigh's Drench blend the slow, suffocating weight of doom metal with the gritty fuzz of grunge, arriving somewhere between heavy rock and traditional doom that feels rooted in both the '90s underground and the Southern soil underfoot. Founded in 2016, they bring a muddy, down-tempo heaviness that owes as much to Sub Pop as it does to Saint Vitus.

Chesapeake, Virginia's Drenched play heavy metal in the classic mold — formed in 2017, they carry forward the tradition of no-frills riff-driven metal without pretense or genre-hopping. Their straightforward approach to the form is a reminder that sometimes the most direct route through heavy music is the most satisfying.