Chicago's SOiL carved their niche in the early 2000s nu-metal landscape with vocalist Ryan McCombs's gritty, emotive delivery and a sound that leaned more toward melodic hard rock than the rap-metal of their contemporaries. Their 2001 debut 'Scars' and its standout track 'Halo' earned significant rock radio play and a loyal Midwest fanbase. After lineup upheavals and McCombs's tenure in Drowning Pool, SOiL have persevered as a reliable live act and a testament to Chicago's contribution to the nu-metal era.

Soil Creep is a heavy metal band from Ohio, formed in 2018, working within traditional heavy metal frameworks to produce riff-driven material rooted in the genre's classic foundations.

Soilent Green is a speed and thrash metal band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, formed in 2021, carrying the name into the Midwest thrash scene with high-energy, aggressive songwriting indebted to the genre's classic American tradition.

Soilent Green is a New Orleans-based sludge, death metal, and grindcore band with roots going back to the early 1990s, widely regarded as one of the most distinctive acts to emerge from the Crescent City's extreme music underground, fusing the region's murky sludge aesthetic with grindcore brutality and experimental dissonance.

Sojourn in Existence is a progressive black/death metal band from Oregon, formed in 2021, weaving complex compositional structures and introspective themes through a framework of blackened extremity and progressive expansion.

Sojourner is a thrash metal band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 2015, operating within the Midwest's active thrash scene and drawing from the genre's classic American and Bay Area influences.

Sokushinbutsu is a grindcore, death metal, and crust punk band from Baltimore, Maryland, formed in 2013, named after the Japanese practice of self-mummification and channeling that extreme dedication into ferociously short, punishing compositions.

Sol Ether is a death metal band from Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 2022, contributing to the New England extreme metal scene with a straightforward dedication to the genre's core sonic brutality.

Sol Negate is a symphonic metal band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 2020, layering orchestral grandeur over heavy metal foundations in the tradition of cinematic symphonic metal coming out of the Pacific Northwest.