San Antonio's Sacrificial Possession arrived in 2023 with a black/death metal sound rooted in hostility and ritual darkness — the kind of band that treats genre conventions as a launchpad rather than a ceiling. Their approach fuses the savagery of death metal's low-end brutality with the icy tremolo malevolence of black metal, carving out a uniquely Texan corner of the underground.

Michigan's Sacrificial Rite works in the corrosive tradition of raw black metal and noise, producing recordings that feel less like performances than transmissions from somewhere deeply hostile. Formed in 2020, the project also ventures into dungeon synth, creating a tension between freezing lo-fi aggression and solitary, meditative ambience.

Sacrilegio Excelsi is a pagan black metal band from Manizales, Colombia, active since 2010 (originally under the name Sacrilegio). Their sound draws on paganism, mythology, and anti-Christianity, and they released their debut full-length "Apología bafomética" in 2017 followed by "Más allá de los eones" in 2021 on In Darkness Records.

Boston's Sacrum have spent their career since 2008 fusing death and thrash metal into something that carries the intellectual weight of New England's metal scene alongside uncompromising brutality. Their sound is precise without being sterile — angular, riff-forward death/thrash that owes as much to the Bay Area as it does to Europe's extremity.

California's Sadisme has operated since 2018 in the unforgiving terrain of raw black metal, building a catalog defined by primitive production and an unwillingness to soften any edge. The project strips the genre down to its most confrontational elements — hissing tape noise, venomous riffs, and an atmosphere of pure contempt.

Raw blackened speed metal channeling Motorhead and Judas Priest through an extreme metal lens. 'Midnight Assassin' is a nine-track ode to serial killers.

Filthy Depressive / Post-Black Metal from Oak Park, Illinois (early); Texas (mid); Baltimore, Maryland (later).

Sadus is a thrash and death metal band from Antioch, California, formed in 1984 by vocalist Darren Travis, guitarist Rob Moore, bassist Steve Di Giorgio, and drummer Jon Allen. Known for blending technical thrash with death metal aggression, the band debuted with Illusions (later reissued as Chemical Exposure) in 1988 and built a cult following through albums such as Swallowed in Black and A Vision of Misery. Bassist Steve Di Giorgio, who also played with Death and Testament, became one of the most celebrated technical metal bassists of his generation, and the band returned in 2023 with The Shadow Inside, their first new record in over two decades.

Denver's Saeva occupy a distinctive space in the Rocky Mountain metal underground, blending post-black metal's expansive atmospherics with progressive architecture and genuine black metal menace since 2019. Their music breathes at altitude — sprawling, searching, and capable of pivoting from crystalline ambience into punishing darkness within a single track.