Northern Virginia's With Burning Contempt formed in 2013 and have been working the convergence of thrash, death, and black metal ever since — a trifecta that allows them to be punishing from multiple angles at once. The Northern Virginia/DC corridor has a long and underrated history in American extreme metal, and this band carries that tradition forward with aggression and purpose. Their name signals the attitude: no nostalgia, just hostility.

Port Huron, Michigan's With or Without formed in 2020 and bring a progressive dimension to their metalcore foundation, stretching song structures and harmonic ideas further than the genre's more orthodox practitioners. The progressive metalcore space has become increasingly crowded, but a band emerging from small-city Michigan brings a different hunger to the table. Their Bandcamp presence suggests a band serious about craft and musical growth.

With Passion formed in Sacramento, California in 2002, drawing from European melodic death metal — particularly At the Gates and Dissection — and the technical metalcore emerging from the US and Canada in the early 2000s. The band released two albums on Earache Records, In the Midst of Bloodied Soil (2005) and What We See When We Shut Our Eyes (2007), before disbanding that same year. Though short-lived, they were noted for their technical precision and the blackened edge they brought to the melodic metalcore sound.

Nashville, Tennessee's Withdrawn formed in 2021 in the bleak overlap between doom, sludge, and death metal — a combination that turns the misery dial up considerably. Nashville is better known for country and Americana, which makes the emergence of a genuinely crushing doom/death act there all the more striking. Their sound is heavy in the way that feels earned rather than performed.

Withered formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003, founded by Mike Thompson and Chris Freeman out of the wreckage of their crust/grind band Social Infestation, with a mandate to merge black metal, death metal, and doom without allegiance to any single subgenre. Their five full-lengths — Memento Mori (2005), Folie Circulaire (2008), Dualitas (2010), Grief Relic (2015), and Verloren (2021) — trace a career of sustained masochistic intensity, released through Lifeforce, Prosthetic, and Season of Mist. The involvement of Primitive Man's Ethan McCarthy beginning in 2013 further deepened the band's devotion to extremity.

Witherfall was formed in Los Angeles, California in 2013 by vocalist Joseph Michael and guitarist Jake Dreyer, both veterans of White Wizzard, channeling dark progressive and power metal in the tradition of Queensrÿche and Fates Warning. Their 2017 debut Nocturnes and Requiems was shadowed by the death of original drummer Adam Sagan from lymphoma in December 2016, and the band's subsequent output — A Prelude to Sorrow (2018), The Curse of Autumn (2020), and Sounds of the Forgotten (2024) — has carried a thematic weight commensurate with that loss. They are regarded as one of the stronger acts in the modern progressive power metal revival.

Omaha, Nebraska's Witherfang have been building progressive metal architecture since 2018, occupying a Midwestern corner of a genre usually associated with major coastal scenes. Progressive metal rewards ambition over geography, and Witherfang seem to understand that — their name and Bandcamp presence suggest a band interested in the longer, more complex end of heavy music. Omaha has a quietly serious underground, and Witherfang are a credible part of it.

Richmond, Virginia's Witherhorde formed in 2024 playing thrash and heavy metal with the urgency of a band that has a lot to prove and no patience for half-measures. Richmond is one of the American South's genuinely strong metal cities, with a DIY underground that has produced a steady stream of serious acts over the decades. Witherhorde are a new entry in that lineage, leaning hard into the old-school thrash tradition.

Los Angeles' Withering Night formed in 2022 and deliver black metal with the cold, anguished quality the genre demands — a sound that sits in stark contrast to LA's sprawling, sun-drenched reputation. Their atmospheric approach places them in the more melodically inclined wing of American black metal, where bleakness is rendered with care and intention. They are among the younger generation of LA extreme acts quietly building something substantial.