Richmond, Virginia's Letcher have been hauling stoner and doom metal out of the city's fertile heavy underground since 2006, their sound as weathered and slow-burning as the James River at dusk.

One of America's longest-running progressive power metal acts, Lethal have been crafting keyboard-laced, melodically adventurous heavy metal from Hebron, Kentucky since the mid-1960s — a true institutional presence.

New Brunswick's Lethal Affection deliver classic heavy metal with hard rock swagger, keeping the tradition of arena-ready riffs and earnest melody alive in the Garden State since 2017.

Heavy Heavy Metal from Fort Worth.

Named for a toxic lichen, Santa Cruz's Letharia weave atmospheric black metal and slow-burning doom into something as coastal and creeping as Pacific fog rolling over the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Los Angeles' letlive. burned bright as one of the most incendiary post-hardcore bands of the 2010s, driven by Jason Aalon Butler's unhinged stage presence and the band's genre-defying fusion of hardcore, punk, and soul. Albums like 'Fake History' and 'The Blackest Beautiful' earned them a rabid cult following before Butler went on to form Fever 333.

Southern California post-hardcore outfit Letter Kills emerged from the Temecula desert in 2002 with a riff-heavy blend of hard-charged alternative rock, 80s hair-metal swagger, and punk energy. Their 2004 Island Def Jam debut 'The Bridge' landed them on MTV2 and the Nintendo Fusion Tour alongside My Chemical Romance before the band's untimely split in 2006. A 2023 reunion single co-produced by Joey Bradford of The Used signaled a long-awaited return for the SoCal rockers.

Cape Cod's most noxious export, Leukorrhea have been unleashing Cape Cod-spawned brutal death metal since 2016 — technically repulsive and proudly uncompromising in the Massachusetts underground.

Portland's Leviathan operate in the austere zone where black metal meets ambient cold — raw, solitary, and suffocating, their music channels the Pacific Northwest's deep isolation since 2011.