Formed in 2019 in Dunlap, Indiana, Thorns of the Machine delivers straightforward death metal with a no-frills approach suited to the small-city underground. Their name suggests a mechanized brutality, and their dedication to the genre's raw essentials keeps them grounded in the tradition.

One of the oldest USBM bands, active since 1993. Named after the Isengard song. Released on Werewolf Records with decades of raw, bestial output.

Bloomington, Indiana's Thorr-Axe play a riff-worshipping brand of stoner doom that sits comfortably in the lineage of Electric Wizard and Saint Vitus while carrying its own Midwestern heft. Formed in 2010, the band leans into fuzz-thick guitar tone and hypnotic, plodding tempos that invite the listener to lose themselves in the low end.

Buffalo, New York's Thortoise have been crafting melodic death metal since 2017, blending Scandinavian melodic influence with the blunt-force energy of American death metal. The band's name cheekily suggests a slow-and-steady philosophy, but their music moves with real purpose and melodic clarity.

Georgia's Thos Ælla formed in 2021 and operates in the murky, aggressive territory where death and black metal collide, drawing on both traditions without fully committing to either. The Old English name signals an interest in antiquity, and their sound carries a primitive rawness that fits the aesthetic.

Chicago's Those Motherfuckers have been tearing up the Midwest underground since 2009 with a punk-metal hybrid that fuses crust's bile and urgency with heavy metal's riff-driven power. Direct, loud, and unapologetically abrasive, they belong to a long Chicago tradition of bands who don't waste time with subtlety.

Auburn, California's Those Who Live in Death formed in 2025, making them one of the newest entries in the American black metal underground. Drawing from the genre's traditional arsenal of blast-beaten fury and bleak atmosphere, the project is still in its nascent stages but arrives with a name that signals death-fixated intent.

Erie, Pennsylvania's Thoth Atlantean blend death and black metal through a lens of esoteric, occult mythology, their name invoking both Egyptian cosmology and the lost-civilization mythology of Atlantis. Formed in 2017, the band pursues an extreme metal sound with intellectual and mystical underpinnings that set them apart from straightforward genre acts.

Atlanta's Thoth Nemesis formed in 2014 and wages sonic warfare through blackened thrash, pairing the reckless speed and aggression of thrash metal with the cold, satanic atmosphere of black metal. The Georgia act pulls from both traditions without diluting either, keeping the attack raw and the mood unrelentingly dark.