Boston's Lynx have been delivering no-frills heavy and groove metal since 1999, outlasting trends by staying loyal to riff weight and rhythm above all else. Over two decades in, they remain a fixture of the New England underground.

Lynyrd Skynyrd formed in Jacksonville in 1964, first playing under names such as My Backyard before adopting the name that became synonymous with Southern rock. The classic lineup centered on Ronnie Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, Leon Wilkeson, Billy Powell, Artimus Pyle, and Steve Gaines, with a three-guitar attack that gave the band a heavier and more muscular edge than many of its contemporaries. Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, released in 1973, introduced "Free Bird," "Simple Man," "Tuesday's Gone," and "Gimme Three Steps," while Second Helping brought "Sweet Home Alabama" and cemented the band's national profile. Lynyrd Skynyrd's music fused blues rock, country feeling, hard rock volume, and extended guitar interplay, often pairing working-class storytelling with long instrumental climaxes. The 1977 plane crash that killed Van Zant, Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and others halted the original band at its peak, but surviving members and later lineups carried the name forward. Its best-known songs remain core texts of American guitar rock, defined by grit, melody, and Southern identity.

Blazing Heavy / Power Metal from Lyra.

Southern California's Lysis have been merging the crawl of doom with death metal's rot since 2008, crafting music from the Inland Empire that sounds like decomposition set to a slow, inevitable tempo. Grief rendered in distortion.

Indianapolis melodic black/death outfit Lysura balance knife-sharp riffing against a melodic sensibility that keeps the music from collapsing into pure brutality, a tension they've been refining since 2012. Cold but never static.

Named for a prehistoric predator, Bend's Lythronax bring an appropriately crushing blend of death metal and deathcore to Oregon's high desert, calibrating their breakdowns and blast beats with the precision of something built to hunt. Active since 2014.

Pennsylvania's Lör build epic progressive folk metal on a grand scale, weaving acoustic instrumentation and sweeping narrative ambition through long-form compositions that feel genuinely world-building. Since 2017, they've been among the most ambitious folk-prog acts in the American underground.