Springfield, Massachusetts' Staind became one of the biggest rock bands of the early 2000s with Aaron Lewis's raw, emotionally vulnerable vocal delivery and the band's ability to shift between crushingly heavy verses and achingly melodic choruses. Their 2001 album 'Break the Cycle' debuted at number one and produced the massive hit 'It's Been Awhile,' one of the longest-running number-one rock singles in chart history. Though Lewis's solo country career often overshadows the band's legacy, Staind's catalog represents some of the most emotionally direct and commercially successful hard rock of its era.

Stained Glory was a thrash/heavy metal band from Bogotá, Colombia, formed in 2008 and active as an independent act. They released the Machinery EP in 2011 and the Hate Corrodes EP in 2016 before splitting up.

Stainless is a Portland, Oregon heavy metal and speed metal band formed in 2008, delivering hard-charging, NWOBHM-influenced metal with a hard rock sensibility and a love of speed and melody.

Stake is a northeast Indiana sludge and groove metal band formed in 2019, combining the sludgy low-end heaviness of post-hardcore-influenced metal with the rhythmic, syncopated attack of groove metal.

Stake Driver is a Dayton, Ohio black metal band formed in 2021, playing raw and aggressive black metal steeped in the cold, primitive atmosphere of the genre's second-wave roots.

Stalagmite is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania black metal band formed in 2023, carving out a place in the city's active underground metal scene with raw, atmospheric black metal.

Stalemate of Wills is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania sludge, stoner, and doom metal band formed in 2022, conjuring slow, hazy heaviness from the crossroads of sludge's abrasion and stoner doom's hypnotic weight.

Stallionslaughter is a groove metal and metalcore band from Tulsa, Oklahoma, formed in 2016, blending groove metal's mid-paced riffing and swagger with the aggression and breakdowns of metalcore.

Stammer is a death metal and grindcore band from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, formed in 2024, delivering short, explosive blasts of extremity that fuse grindcore's velocity with death metal's low-end brutality.