Los Angeles-based Helmet carry the legacy of one of alternative metal's most rhythmically sophisticated bands — a unit whose chugging, off-kilter groove has influenced countless acts across heavy music since the early 1990s. Their locked-in, hypnotic attack remains as distinctive as ever.

Florida's Helms Deep arrived in 2023 armed with the kind of heavy and power metal that prizes epic momentum over subtlety — loud, anthemic, and unapologetically bombastic in the tradition of the genre's great fortress-builders. A band that clearly enjoys swinging for the battlements.

Chicago's Helms Deep take a darker road than their namesake, fusing black metal's corrosive atmosphere with thrash metal's velocity since forming in 2023. The result is a siege engine built for underground assault rather than arena glory.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Helpless Agony arrived in 2024 with death metal forged in the blue-collar grit of central PA — compact, brutal, and already showing a confidence beyond their young tenure. A band with no interest in easing anyone in gently.

Helsott bring pagan and folk metal traditions to the American Southwest from their base in Menifee, California, fusing Old Norse mythology with thrash and death metal aggression since 2010. Their name, Old Norse for 'fatal illness,' reflects the band's commitment to combining ancient pagan themes with distinctly American metal sensibilities. The result is a unique take on folk metal that pays homage to European traditions while keeping its boots firmly planted in American thrash.

Houston power/speed metal. James Rivera's voice is one of the great Texas metal instruments.

Auburn, Alabama's Hematovore are a rare thing: a progressive metal act with roots stretching back to 1996, carrying decades of accumulated craft and ambition into a sound that evolves without losing its teeth. Their Southern roots inform a sensibility that is both technically meticulous and emotionally direct.

Formed in Mentor, Ohio in 1993, Hemdale were a grind-gore band whose abrasive extremity and relentless live performances earned them a significant underground following before a 1997 split. The band's 1996 split release with Exhumed, In the Name of Gore, remains a key document of the era, and their network extended through drummer Craig Rowe's Visceral Productions, which played a role in the early careers of Nile, Exhumed, and Dying Fetus. Hemdale reformed in 2013 with vocalist and guitarist Matthew Rositano as the sole original member.

New York's Hemlock trade in a stripped-down, venomous strain of black metal since 2018 — the kind of music that feels personal, antagonistic, and far less interested in spectacle than in atmosphere. Cold, minimal, and quietly corrosive.