Los Angeles-based Sink Shower have been carving their niche in the city's extreme metal underground since 2018, combining black metal's abrasive atmosphere and tremolo intensity with the brute physicality of death metal in a way that feels cold and urban rather than pastoral. Their music reflects the disorienting density and alienation of Southern California's sprawling megalopolis.

A California-based one-person project formed in 2021, Sinn Demonisk fuses raw black metal austerity with crust punk's d-beat aggression, producing lo-fi, deliberately abrasive material with no interest in polish or compromise.

Modesto, California's Siom have been working in raw black metal since 2015, producing intentionally lo-fi, caustic material that prioritizes atmosphere and malevolence over any concession to modern production standards.

Fairfax, California's Siphoner is a young black metal project formed in 2024, working in the Bay Area's fertile underground scene and drawing on the raw, unadorned traditions of atmospheric and orthodox black metal.

A California atmospheric black/death metal act active since 2015, Sire melds the sweeping, post-influenced atmospherics of atmospheric black metal with the crushing brutality of death metal, crafting dense and layered sonic environments.

Skeletal Incineration is a San Diego, California death/black/thrash metal band formed in 2004, forging a destructive hybrid of the three styles that leans into the darkest corners of each — the speed of thrash, the malevolence of black metal, and the low-end grotesquerie of death metal. San Diego has historically been fertile ground for this kind of cross-genre extreme metal brutality.

Los Angeles's Skyeater formed in 2016 weaving black metal's icy dissonance together with doom metal's crawling tempos into a style they describe as a dirge — slow, bleak, and relentlessly oppressive. The band channels the kind of urban dread that tends to haunt Southern California's underground experimental metal scene.

San José, California's Slaughteruin emerged in 2024 at the black/death metal crossroads, channeling the bestial extremity that the Bay Area underground has historically produced alongside its better-known thrash and death scenes. Their name suggests total annihilation as an aesthetic and a philosophy.

San Diego post-black metal band active since 2011, filtering the rawness of black metal through atmospheric and post-rock sensibilities to create expansive, textured compositions. Sleep White Winter embrace melody and dynamics alongside traditional black metal harshness, finding space between the abrasive and the ethereal.