Memphis, Tennessee black metal project formed in 2014, channeling the isolation and darkness of that city's blues-haunted landscape through a purely black metal lens. Operating in a Southern state not typically associated with the genre, Sivad carries an outsider intensity that suits black metal's individualist ethos.

St. Louis band formed in 2023 that drags death metal into sludge metal's murky, slow-burning territory, resulting in music that is both punishing and dense with atmosphere. As a very new act out of a city with a strong underground metal tradition, they arrive with an already fully-formed sense of the crushing and the heavy.

Seattle deathcore and death metal band formed in 2012, drawing from the Pacific Northwest's fertile extreme metal underground to craft music built on technical brutality and the chugging intensity that defines deathcore at its most unrelenting. Over a decade in, they are a fixture of the Seattle underground.

Orlando, Florida sludge and stoner metal band active since 2010, locking into slow, tar-thick grooves and feedback-laden heaviness with the swampy persistence that Florida's humid underground breeds. Their name alone signals the kind of bleakly humorous, road-worn vibe their music inhabits.

Tampa death metal institution founded in 1995 by ex-Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes, known for mid-paced, groove-driven death metal with blunt lyrical carnage and a death 'n' roll swagger that separates them from the more technical end of Florida's scene. Prolific and uncompromising, they remain one of Tampa's most recognizable extreme metal exports.

Blackened death metal band formed in 2008 out of Maricopa and the Ak-Chin Indian Community in Arizona, fusing black metal's cold fury with death metal's pulverizing weight in the stark desert Southwest. Their geographic origins — an indigenous community on the southern Arizona plains — give their darkness a particular edge of outsider extremity.

Dynamic Progressive Metal from Houston.

Austin, Texas band formed in 2017 operating at the intersection of progressive death metal and metalcore, combining technical compositional ambition with the rhythmic directness and emotional intensity that metalcore brings. Their name is provocative and grotesque in the tradition of death metal, belying the progressive sophistication of the music.

Wausau, Wisconsin heavy metal and thrash band formed in 2019, delivering blunt-force heaviness from a small midwestern city in the tradition of regional American metal that never needed a coastal scene to validate it. Their name evokes the workmanlike physicality of their approach — nothing ornate, just weight and impact.