Phoenix's Hellven have been dealing in desert-baked thrash metal since 2015, the kind of straight-ahead speed and aggression that makes sense when you're living somewhere that tries to kill you with heat alone. Their riffs carry both the urgency and the dryness of the Sonoran landscape.

Occult blackened death/doom from the Ordo Satanae Imperium collective. Shares members with Nyogthaeblisz and Nexul. Two albums on Iron Bonehead Productions.

Supergroup formed by Pantera's Vinnie Paul and Mudvayne's Chad Gray. Six studio albums of groove metal. On hiatus since Vinnie Paul's death.

Chicago's Helmer blend doom and stoner metal into slow, hazy monoliths since their 2021 formation, drawing as much from the city's post-industrial heaviness as from the fuzz-soaked tradition of the genre. Thick, meditative, and built for long nights.

Los Angeles-based Helmet carry the legacy of one of alternative metal's most rhythmically sophisticated bands — a unit whose chugging, off-kilter groove has influenced countless acts across heavy music since the early 1990s. Their locked-in, hypnotic attack remains as distinctive as ever.

Florida's Helms Deep arrived in 2023 armed with the kind of heavy and power metal that prizes epic momentum over subtlety — loud, anthemic, and unapologetically bombastic in the tradition of the genre's great fortress-builders. A band that clearly enjoys swinging for the battlements.

Chicago's Helms Deep take a darker road than their namesake, fusing black metal's corrosive atmosphere with thrash metal's velocity since forming in 2023. The result is a siege engine built for underground assault rather than arena glory.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Helpless Agony arrived in 2024 with death metal forged in the blue-collar grit of central PA — compact, brutal, and already showing a confidence beyond their young tenure. A band with no interest in easing anyone in gently.

Helsott bring pagan and folk metal traditions to the American Southwest from their base in Menifee, California, fusing Old Norse mythology with thrash and death metal aggression since 2010. Their name, Old Norse for 'fatal illness,' reflects the band's commitment to combining ancient pagan themes with distinctly American metal sensibilities. The result is a unique take on folk metal that pays homage to European traditions while keeping its boots firmly planted in American thrash.