Gilbert, Arizona's Scissor Dungeon arrive with one of the more memorably absurdist band names in the post-black metal underground, formed in 2022 with a sound that balances the raw, aggressive foundation of black metal with the atmospheric and melodic expansions of the post-black wave. The Phoenix suburban sprawl is an unlikely incubator for this kind of music, making their existence all the more idiosyncratic.

Green Bay, Wisconsin's Scofflaw emerged in 2021 with a sound that fuses the hip-swinging momentum of groove metal with the tightly coiled aggression of metalcore. Their riffs land with a blunt physicality — chugging patterns that lock into a pocket before snapping into breakdowns — while the vocals shift between barked hardcore cadence and abrasive screams. For a young band out of Wisconsin's frozen flatlands, they arrived with a surprisingly seasoned sense of tension and release.

Out of Jonesboro, Arkansas, Scootergypsy has been hauling classic speed and heavy metal influence through the South since 2013 with a no-frills directness that feels ripped straight from the genre's early-80s heyday. Their music runs on twin-guitar attack and wiry, hard-rock swagger — the kind that sounds better on a back-road highway than in a concert hall. They sit comfortably in the tradition of NWOBHM-influenced American speed metal, with enough hard rock looseness to keep it from feeling purely academic.

Formed in 2024 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Scorched Mind arrived already operating at the intersection of three unforgiving genres: death metal's guttural extremity, hardcore's blunt-force confrontation, and sludge's slow, tar-thick grind. That northeastern Pennsylvania post-industrial grit filters through their sound — riffs that drag and then erupt, tempos that punish before collapsing into murk. A brand-new project with the density of something that's been corroding for decades.

Scoria is a thrash metal and crossover band from La Paz, Bolivia, with roots stretching back to 1992, making them one of the longer-running acts in the country's metal underground. The band released a string of full-lengths across the 2000s and 2010s — including Anti-Bolivia (2000), Sol (2002), Resistencia (2004), and Inmortal (2018) — documenting over two decades of politically charged and socially critical Bolivian metal. Their 2021 live album Vive captures the band's enduring presence on the La Paz scene.

One of the longer-running black metal acts in the northern Virginia underground, Fairfax's Scorn has maintained an uncompromising presence since 1992 — outlasting trends, line-up shifts, and the general churn of the American black metal scene. Their output is rooted in the raw, hateful aesthetic of second-wave black metal: tremolo-drenched riffing, blasphemous atmosphere, and a commitment to the form that three decades haven't softened. They remain one of the quiet veterans of the East Coast underground.

Los Angeles spawned Scornmonger in 2025, a death metal project arriving in the city's perpetually crowded extreme music scene with something to prove. Rooted in the meat-and-bone tradition of straight death metal — dense, down-tuned riffing, blasted rhythms, and a vocal approach that's all growl and gravel — they carry the L.A. lineage of brutality without dressing it up. Young but clearly schooled, they sound like they've been studying the genre's architecture before tearing walls down.

Austin classic heavy rock in the vein of early Sabbath and Zeppelin. Big riffs, bigger hooks.

Scott Kelly is the longtime frontman of sludge-doom legends Neurosis, and his solo work — launched in Oakland in 2001 — strips the massive amplification away to reveal something rawer and more intimate: acoustic folk, sparse progressive structures, and the same scarred emotional intensity that defines his work with his main band. His voice, weathered and confessional, carries the weight of decades of extreme music through arrangements built on fingerpicked guitar and quiet devastation. It is metal's spirit filtered through folk's bones.