Brooklyn death metal veterans Memorial Gore have been at it since 2013, building a catalog steeped in the Old School traditions that the New York underground has long revered — caveman riffing, sepulchral production, and a relentless forward momentum that references the genre's early 90s peak without feeling like mere nostalgia. New York City's death metal lineage is one of the most storied in the genre, and Memorial Gore fit naturally into that lineage while carving out their own particular brand of brutality. They remain one of Brooklyn's more consistent and uncompromising death metal exports.

Hard-hitting Metalcore from Weatherford.

Denton metalcore with anthemic hooks and aggressive breakdowns. One of the biggest metalcore bands to come out of Texas.

From Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mendacium have been forging blackened death metal since 2017 in one of the American Southwest's more isolated metal scenes, and that geographic remove is audible in the music — a rawness and arid hostility that mirrors the high desert terrain. Their death/black hybrid leans into the darkness native to both genres, blending the blasting intensity of death metal with black metal's corrosive, atmospheric venom. Few cities produce extreme metal quite like Albuquerque does, and Mendacium stand as one of the scene's sharper exports.

Portland, Oregon's Menin have been sculpting stoner/doom metal since 2017 with the unhurried confidence of a band that understands what the genre demands: weight, patience, and a riff heavy enough to collapse under its own gravity. Portland's fertile underground has long welcomed the slow and heavy, and Menin fit naturally into that tradition — drawing from the psychedelic fog of stoner metal while anchoring everything in the bone-deep plod of doom. Their sound evokes the Pacific Northwest's overcast skies and towering forests, a particular kind of gloom that is neither aggressive nor resigned but simply immovable.

San Fernando Valley's Menk have been dragging death metal through a hardcore/punk filter since 2018, producing something rawer and more confrontational than the genre's polished technical end — a death metal/punk hybrid that owes as much to d-beat and early hardcore as it does to Morbid Angel. Los Angeles has a long underground tradition of genre-crossing brutality, and Menk embody that spirit by building a sound that is ugly, direct, and unapologetically aggressive. They are a Valley band in the best sense: scrappy, loud, and refusing to be smoothed down.

Lakeland, Florida's Menstrual Moonshine operate in the overlapping territory between brutal death metal and grindcore where songs are measured in seconds and volume is the primary compositional tool. Formed in 2020, they lean into the Sunshine State's longstanding tradition of extreme metal extremity, weaponizing short-duration brutality and blast beats with the kind of commitment that makes the genre's most outrageous acts genuinely compelling rather than merely provocative. Florida has produced some of the most unhinged death metal in the world, and Menstrual Moonshine approach that lineage with appropriately unhinged results.

Buffalo, New York's Mental Anguish have been grinding since 2018, bringing a relentless grindcore assault to a city with a deep and underappreciated metal history. Their approach to the genre is rooted in the classic tradition of pure physical aggression — short, blasting, and without mercy, the kind of grindcore that leaves no room for subtlety or patience. Buffalo's long winters and blue-collar grit seem to seep into the music, lending a certain grim purposefulness to the brutality.

Philadelphia's Mental Funeral carry one of the most storied names in the death/doom subgenre, and the band — newly active as of 2025 — approaches the weight of that legacy with appropriately glacial heaviness. Their death/doom metal fuses the crushing desolation of funeral doom's tempos with death metal's most sepulchral vocal textures and chord structures, building an atmosphere of profound, suffocating grief. Philadelphia has a long history of dark and extreme music, and Mental Funeral plant their flag in the genre's most lugubrious, mournful corner.