Kensington, California's Vomitorium came together in 2017 with a sound that plants thrash metal squarely in punk's grease-stained soil, the kind of crossover aggression that reminds you both genres were always closer than their gatekeepers wanted to admit. The Bay Area heritage shows — fast, loud, and furious with a working-class attitude that precedes any genre label.

Formed in Las Vegas in 2022, Von Boldt bring heavy metal to a city whose neon spectacle and underlying desert desolation make for an unexpectedly fitting backdrop for the genre. Still early in their trajectory, they're building on traditional heavy metal foundations with the kind of earnest conviction that suggests the city's outsider reputation is actually a point of pride.

Portland, Oregon's Von Doom have been working the metalcore circuit since 2017, drawing on the genre's interplay between crushing breakdowns and melodic tension in a city whose scene has consistently rewarded bands that take the form seriously. They fit naturally into Portland's broad experimental metal community while keeping their aggression properly anchored.

Ruthless Slam / Brutal Death Metal from San Antonio.

Voraginem was a death/thrash metal band from Santiago, Chile, active from 2016 until their split-up. The band released one EP, "Ad Astra" (2016), a four-track recording composed entirely by the band between March and October of that year, with lyrics drawing on mythology and ancient gods.

Pueblo, Colorado's Vornske arrived in 2021 with a black metal sound shaped by the high plains and the isolation that comes with working in a city far from major metal hubs. There's a rawness to their approach that feels genuine rather than affected — black metal that carries the actual weight of geographic remove rather than just its aesthetic.

Vorpal Sword emerged from Louisville, Kentucky in 2017 as a vicious hybrid of black metal, punk, and noise. The band channels the raw confrontational energy of the Louisville underground, dragging black metal's grimness through abrasive punk grit and corroded noise textures. Their sound is less concerned with atmosphere than with controlled aggression and sonic damage.

Formed in 2020 in Guilderland, New York, Vortex play heavy metal grounded in the hard-driving traditions of thrash with a no-frills, riff-first approach. The band leans into the kinetic energy of classic thrash while keeping the songwriting anchored in heavy metal's melodic instincts. Short on pretension and long on velocity, they represent the continuing vitality of the upstate New York metal underground.

Out of Oakland, California since 2016, Vortex of Narvik operates in the suffocating register of depressive black metal layered with ambient drift. The name evokes the desolate Arctic port city that became a symbol of brutal attrition, and the music follows suit — long, spiraling compositions that trade in anguish and cold isolation. Ambient passages erode into raw black metal without warning, keeping the listener perpetually off-balance.