Death metal outfit out of Woodland Park, New Jersey, formed in 2022, delivering a raw and punishing take on the genre with a hardcore-inflected edge. Relatively new to the circuit but already carving a specific, unforgiving niche in the Northeast underground.

San Francisco technical/progressive death metal band formed in 2016, operating in a Bay Area tradition of cerebral extremity. Their music pushes at the architecture of death metal, favoring labyrinthine song structures and technical precision.

Thrash metal band from Westchester County, New York, active since 2013, rooted in the classic American thrash idiom. Over a decade in, they represent the persistent backbone of the suburban New York underground metal scene.

Melodic black metal project out of Princeton, Illinois, formed in 2017. Drawing on the atmospheric and melodic strains of Scandinavian black metal, they filter that tradition through an American Midwest isolation that gives the music its own austere character.

Death metal band from Mishawaka, Indiana, formed in 2016, operating in the dense and overlooked underground of the American heartland. Their name evokes a kabbalistic hierarchy of forces, lending a philosophical undercurrent to the brutality.

Death metal band from Eugene, Oregon, formed in 2021, with a punk-inflected identity visible in their presentation. They bring a no-frills, confrontational energy to Oregon's heavy underground.

Black metal band from Davenport, Iowa, active since 2013. Named after a funerary cult-like gathering evoked by the Colossi of Memnon, they bring a ritualistic, mythology-steeped sensibility to the American Midwest black metal underground.

Formed in 2021 in Opelika, Alabama, Septarian forge a sound that fuses the melodic sweep of Scandinavian death metal with the aggressive riff velocity of thrash. Their approach leans hard into dual-guitar interplay and driving rhythms that never sacrifice hook for brutality. Still a young band, they represent a promising new voice in the American melodic death/thrash underground.

Out of Layton, Utah since 2008, Septic Baptism have spent nearly two decades building suffocating walls of sludge and doom from the high desert. Their music moves at a glacial, punishing pace, drawing equally from the corrosive weight of sludge and the mournful slow-burn of traditional doom. They are one of Utah's most enduring heavy underground acts.