Portland, Oregon's Witch Mountain are one of the most respected names in American traditional doom, having rebuilt themselves around 2011 with an emphasis on powerful, blues-rooted riffing and commanding vocal performances. They occupy a space where classic doom meets Southern rock swagger, slow and hypnotic without sacrificing genuine emotional weight. Over more than a decade they have proven themselves one of the Pacific Northwest's essential heavy acts.

A very recent arrival from Santa Cruz, California, Witch Whores of Satan formed in 2024 and lean into the fuzz-soaked stoner doom aesthetic with a name that signals absolutely no interest in subtlety. Santa Cruz's countercultural coastal identity feeds naturally into their hazy, riff-forward approach. Still in their earliest days, they are already carving out space in the California underground with pure heaviness.

Portland, Oregon's Witchbones have been operating since 2014 in the slow-moving territory where death metal meets funeral doom — crushing, suffocating, and utterly deliberate. Their sound eschews speed for density, piling on layers of guttural heaviness that demand patience from the listener. They are a fixture of Portland's consistently strong underground metal scene.

Based in Talkeetna, Alaska — one of the more remote homes for any metal band in the country — Witchcrown have been grinding out thrash-infused black metal since 2011. The isolation of the Alaskan interior is palpable in their sound: cold, stripped-down, and driven by a DIY ethos that makes most continental scenes look pampered. They are a testament to the fact that geography is no obstacle to ferocity.

San Antonio doom metal with soaring vocals. Classic doom with a Texas edge.

Minneapolis, Minnesota's Witchden have been conjuring blackened sludge since 2012, blending the raw hostility of black metal with the dragging weight of sludge into something particularly oppressive. The Twin Cities' long tradition of heavy, avant-leaning underground music provides fertile ground for their brand of caustic, atmosphere-forward extremity. They sit comfortably in the lineage of acts like Thou and Dragged Into Sunlight.

Indianapolis, Indiana's Witchdoctor have been practicing their craft since 2015, offering slow-moving doom metal rooted in the traditional side of the genre — heavy riffs, mournful atmosphere, minimal frills. Indianapolis has a quietly strong doom underground, and Witchdoctor represent its more workmanlike and uncompromising strand. Their Bandcamp presence under the "witchdoctor3" handle suggests a band that keeps its focus squarely on the music.

An Arizona black metal act operating under the Witchery name since 2011, this project channels pure second-wave aggression and nocturnal darkness with no interest in commercial softening. The Bandcamp URL ties them to the "black witchery" tag, suggesting an uncompromising devotion to raw, adversarial black metal aesthetics. They are a deliberately underground entry in the American black metal underground.

Cleveland's Witchery are a death metal outfit active since 2011, drawing on the city's long and storied tradition of heavy underground music. Cleveland has produced some of the American Midwest's most unforgiving metal, and this band slots into that lineage with no-frills death metal built for aggression over atmosphere. The shared Bandcamp handle with their Arizona namesake makes them easy to confuse, but the death metal pedigree here is distinctly its own.