Madison, Wisconsin's House of Lud have been stacking stoner and doom metal in equal measure since 2018, producing riffs that settle in like weather — slow-moving, overcast, and unavoidable. Their tone carries genuine weight.

House of Protection is the Los Angeles duo of Stephen Harrison and Aric Improta, both known for intense, rhythmically physical work before launching this project in 2024. The music takes post-hardcore and hardcore punk as a base, then drives it through electronics, trap percussion, trip-hop atmosphere, industrial textures, and shouted dual-vocal hooks. Their debut material introduced a compact but explosive sound: Harrison's guitar lines and vocals move between abrasion and melody while Improta's drumming supplies a restless, athletic pulse that often feels as central as the riffs. GALORE established the group as more than a side project, and Outrun You All expanded the approach with darker, more nocturnal production and broader alternative rock colors. The band's short history matters because the context is unusually clear: two musicians with heavy-scene credibility using a new project to shed expectations, make rhythm the lead instrument, and keep the communal pressure of hardcore while letting synths, samples, and club-weight low end shape the attack. The result feels engineered for rooms where rhythm and impact collide.

Providence, Rhode Island sludge metal band Howl formed in 2006 and signed to Relapse Records in 2009, releasing their debut EP that same year to positive reviews from Decibel Magazine. Their first full-length Full of Hell appeared in 2010, followed by Bloodlines (2013), produced by Zeus and reflecting years of touring alongside Saint Vitus, Kylesa, and Pentagram. The band occupies a well-worn but convincingly executed space between sludge, stoner doom, and Southern-tinged heavy rock.

Cincinnati, Ohio's Howling have been pushing cold, stripped-down black metal since 2015, capturing something feral and windswept in the urban rust belt context. The city's industrial undertone seeps into every track.

Named for the Norse corpse-swallowing eagle at the edge of the world, Concord, New Hampshire's Hræsvelgr have been playing black metal steeped in heathen mythology since 2016. Their sound is as austere and uncompromising as the name suggests.

Amarillo, Texas's Hubris have been bringing metalcore's emotional intensity to the Texas Panhandle since 2015, where the flat horizon and punishing wind seem to breed a certain grim determination. Melodic but never soft.

Buffalo, New York's Hubris channel a different kind of pride — the black metal variety — since 2015, operating with the bleak ferocity that the industrial ruins of western New York seem to inspire. Cold and unrelenting.

Washington state's Hulder is a solo black metal act named for the seductive forest spirits of Norse folklore, weaving atmospheric darkness with melodic intensity since 2018. Their debut earned wide acclaim for its confident grip on the second-wave tradition.

Mankato, Minnesota's Human Bashing have been delivering brutal death metal with unambiguous intent since 2014. Technically punishing and lyrically unsparing, they lean into the genre's most extreme traditions with earnest conviction.