San Diego's HellFynder fuses the reckless velocity of black/thrash metal into an unrelenting attack since 2020, taking equal inspiration from the second wave and the first-wave speed merchants. They are lean, aggressive, and direct — genre devotees with fangs intact.

Named after their Inland Empire hometown, Hesperia (CA) have been trafficking in death metal since 2018 with a directness that reflects the working-class sprawl of their surroundings. Unadorned brutality from a corner of California metal that rarely gets the attention it deserves.

please update this band

Los Angeles' Hexen bring melodic sophistication and progressive ambition to the thrash template, threading complex arrangements through otherwise hard-hitting material. Their approach reflects the technical tradition of the LA metal scene while reaching toward something more compositionally adventurous.

A recent arrival from Santa Rosa, California, Hexen House entered the black metal underground in 2024 with the urgency of a band that has been waiting too long to start. Raw and immediate, their early work sounds less like a debut than a declaration.

Los Angeles' Highland have been working a raw and confrontational strain of black metal since 2013, finding in the city's sprawl and contradictions a fitting backdrop for music this harsh and austere. The project operates at the margin of the local scene rather than its center.

Born in Los Angeles in 2020, Hohlgeist fuses raw black metal with shoegaze, wrapping tremolo-drenched noise in hazy, atmospheric drift. The result is something hollow and haunted, as if the void itself has a texture.

A California black metal project active since 2021, Hollow Husk traffics in desolation and stripped-down hostility. What remains after the flesh is gone — hollow, cold, and unrelenting.