Austin's Ninth Circle takes the same name but an entirely different direction — their black metal/punk hybrid has been tearing through the Texas underground since 2018 with a rawer, more confrontational energy. The influence of punk keeps their black metal lean and furious rather than ornate, fitting neatly into Austin's long tradition of genre-crossing extreme acts.

New York's Ninth Degree started life rooted in stoner metal before pivoting to a harder thrash sound, a trajectory that speaks to their restless refusal to stay in one lane since forming in 2019. The shift mirrors the broader evolution of the New York underground, where stylistic rigidity has always been less valued than energy and conviction.

Intricate Symphonic / Progressive Metal out of Texas.

Named for the corpse-gnawing serpent coiled at the roots of Yggdrasil, Niohoggr emerged from Yauco in 2017 carrying the cold, misanthropic fury of black metal at its most confrontational. Their music channels the Norwegian second-wave aesthetic through a lens that feels distinctly isolated and relentless, with tremolo-drenched riffs and blasted percussion conjuring something genuinely hostile.

NITE is a San Francisco, California blackened heavy metal band formed in 2018 by Van Labrakis, Scott Hoffman, Bryan Coons, and Pat Crawford, fusing first-wave black metal rawness with traditional heavy metal riffing and a gothic undertow. Their debut Darkness Silence Mirror Flame was released in 2020 on Creator-Destructor Records, establishing a sound that draws from Venom, Mercyful Fate, and classic NWOBHM alongside modern black metal atmospherics. Voices of the Kronian Moon and the Decibel-lauded Cult of the Serpent Sun (2025) solidified their standing as one of the more distinctive acts in the contemporary blackened heavy metal revival. The band is signed to Season of Mist.

Brooklyn's Nitesoil arrived in 2020 with a death metal sound rooted firmly in the fetid, churning tradition — dense riffs, guttural vocals, and a production aesthetic that feels caked in grime. Coming out of New York City's perpetually fertile underground, they bring an urban brutality to the genre that suits their surroundings, leaning into the punishing end of the death metal spectrum without apology.

Austin's Nixmoon has been quietly cultivating a raw and atmospheric black metal sound since 2014, layering howling dissonance over cavernous ambience in ways that feel both primitive and meditative. Their approach sits at the intersection of lo-fi second-wave abrasion and the more expansive post-black textures, creating a distinctly nocturnal sound that fits the isolated, strange edges of the Texas Hill Country.

Bergen, New Jersey's NJDOTS have been grinding out brutal deathcore since 2010, fusing the gutting low-end of brutal death metal with the pit-ready breakdowns and caustic energy of deathcore. Over a decade-plus of activity, they've honed a sound that is relentlessly physical — all down-tuned punishment and blastbeat aggression — making them a fixture of the Northeast's underground extreme metal circuit.

Virginia's Nnunn traffic in a murky, claustrophobic blend of atmospheric death and black metal that surfaced in 2021 with a sound that feels as though it was excavated rather than written. The band operates in shadowy territory where death metal's crushing weight bleeds into black metal's spectral dissonance, producing something that feels genuinely unmoored and unsettling.