Volja — Slavic for "will" or "freedom" — is an anonymous US-based raw black metal project that started in 2020 and operates in the deliberately primitive, confrontational space that defines the genre's rawer subculture. Without a fixed location to anchor them, their music reads as pure ideological expression: trebly, minimal, misanthropic, and unconcerned with accessibility. The name's Slavic connotations add a layer of ideological weight to what might otherwise read as pure sonic asceticism.

Sacramento's Volrahven have been playing thrash/death metal since 2020, combining the Bay Area thrash tradition in their geographic vicinity with the more vicious end of death metal to produce something meaner than pure thrash and more riff-centered than pure death. California has an obvious claim on both genres and Volrahven work like a band that knows the history and wants to operate in the space between the two rather than settling for either. Four years in, the Sacramento underground has found a reliable representative.

Los Angeles djent pioneers Volumes helped define the progressive metalcore wave of the early 2010s with their polyrhythmic guitar work and genre-blurring incorporation of hip-hop and R&B vocal styles. Albums like 'Via' and 'No Sleep' showcased their technical chops and willingness to experiment, making them mainstays of the modern heavy music festival circuit.

Out of Greenville, South Carolina, Volvulus have spent over a decade crafting some of the ugliest, most punishing slam death metal the Southeast has to offer. Since forming in 2010 they've refined a sound built on cavernous, bowel-shaking breakdowns and the kind of surgical brutality that defines the genre's most dedicated practitioners.

Detroit's Vomiphilia rose from the city's already abrasive underground in 2021, fusing death metal's grotesque anatomy with goregrind's fixation on bodily horror. Their music lands with the blunt force of a city that has never had much patience for subtlety — raw, disgusting, and thoroughly committed to extremity.

New York's Vomit Fist have been hammering out short, brutal grindcore assaults since 2014, the kind of band that treats song length as a luxury they simply can't afford. Relentless blastbeats and serrated riffs delivered with zero ornamentation define their output — pure grind economy from a state with a long, vicious tradition of it.

Vomit Forth formed in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 2018, playing a punishing form of brutal death metal informed by hardcore aggression and gore-themed lyrical content. After a series of self-released demos and the Northeastern Deprivation compilation (2019), the band signed to Century Media Records and released their second album Terrified of God in October 2024, cementing their place in the current wave of brutal death metal.

Formed in Buffalo in 2020, Vomit Hounds drag black and death metal through the industrial grit of upstate New York's underbelly. They strike at the intersection where cold, atmospheric black metal hostility collides with death metal's obsession with rot — a combination that suits Buffalo's long winters and grimmer instincts perfectly.

Montpelier, Virginia's Vomit Stain have been running a death/thrash racket since 2017, threading the savage riffing of old-school thrash through a death metal framework that adds extra density and menace. Their sound is meat-and-potatoes extreme metal executed with the stubborn regional pride of a band that has no interest in trends.