Founded in 2017, Reminisce sits at the intersection of depressive and post-black metal, favoring cascading walls of sound that ache with longing rather than just punish. Their compositions stretch outward into atmospheric spaces while never abandoning the raw, lo-fi emotional core that defines the depressive black metal tradition. It's introspective and crushing in equal measure.

A North Carolina black metal project born in 2022, Reminiscent Delusion trades in the kind of cold, unadorned blackness that owes more to the Norwegian second wave than any modern reinterpretation. The name itself suggests a preoccupation with fractured memory and psychological darkness, themes that infuse the music with a harrowing personal quality. Raw, uncompromising, and newly forged.

Houston deathcore/progressive death metal. Debut album Treachery released 2023.

Punishing Deathcore from Waxahachie.

From Tamaqua, Pennsylvania — a small Appalachian coal town that breeds hard music — Rended conjure a raw, regionalist black metal that carries the weight of the anthracite landscape. Formed in 2020, their sound evokes isolation and cold without relying on polish or convention. There's something distinctly American and rural about their particular strain of darkness.

Pueblo, Colorado's Rendlesham take their name from a famous UFO incident and match that cosmic mystery with stoner metal that lumbers and levitates in equal measure. Since 2015 they've been Pueblo's heavy ambassadors, building riff-worship around fuzz-drenched guitars and an unhurried, planet-rolling heaviness. Equal parts desert and outer space.

Deltona, Florida's REO RapeVan merge sludge and stoner metal into something swamp-thick and deliberately abrasive, fully committed to the underground's most transgressive naming traditions. Formed in 2020, they lean into the lo-fi, mean-spirited corner of the sludge spectrum where Eyehategod's shadow falls longest. Florida's heat and humidity seem baked into every slow-motion riff.

Named after the iconic Indonesian folk art form, Los Angeles' Reog bring a multicultural undercurrent to classic heavy metal, forming in 2017 within one of the world's most diverse cities. Their approach is rooted in traditional metal architecture — muscular riffing, melodic sensibility — while nodding to cultural sources outside the genre's typical European and American frame. A distinctive identity in the LA metal underground.

Chicago's Repentance launched in 2021 blending melodic groove metal with metalcore, sitting comfortably in the tradition of hard-hitting Midwestern bands that prioritize groove and aggression over pure technicality. The city's blue-collar metal legacy — think Disturbed, Soil — echoes through their emphasis on rhythmic punch and vocal hooks. A young band with a clear sense of purpose.