Named after a demon of transformation, Long Island's Haagenti began with melodic death metal roots before evolving into a heavier, more unrelenting death metal sound over their decade-plus existence. Their trajectory mirrors the demonic namesake — a gradual, deliberate shift into something darker.

Taking their name from the cold sea fog that rolls in off the North Sea, Haar is a U.S. black metal project that conjures a similarly bleak and suffocating atmosphere. Active since 2010, they trade in the kind of desolate, windswept darkness that recalls the genre's Scandinavian origins.

New Orleans sludge and doom act Haarp draws heavily from the murk and misery of their city's storied extreme metal tradition. Since regrouping in 2014, they've built a reputation on crushing low-end riffs and an oppressive, swamp-soaked heaviness.

Out of New Orleans, Haate has been channeling pure thrash aggression since 2014, bringing a mean-spirited, no-frills attack that fits right alongside the city's broader tradition of extreme music. Raw and relentless.

San Diego's Habitual Defilement occupies the brutal end of the death metal spectrum, fusing slam's rhythmic brutality with the relentless speed and gore fixation of brutal death metal since 2012. Unambiguously punishing.

Pittsburgh's Habitual Sins has been carrying the torch for traditional heavy metal in western Pennsylvania since 2017, drawing on the genre's classic power and melodic directness while planting firmly in the city's blue-collar metal tradition.

Marietta, Georgia's Haborym traffics in the raw intersection of black and death metal, bearing the name of a duke of hell and emerging in 2024 with a fittingly malevolent sound. Expect no mercy and no polish.

Canandaigua, New York's Haborym bludgeons with brutal death metal authority, offering the full-spectrum punishment that the subgenre requires since their 2024 formation. Dense, guttural, and relentless.

Atlanta's Hackenschmied is a freshly minted raw black metal project, born in 2025 and committed to the genre's most primitive and abrasive aesthetic. Little studio gloss, maximum sonic hostility.