Los Angeles blackened thrash act Thorns of Sin formed in 2015 and draws from the same Southern California tradition that produced many crossover-influenced metal acts, mixing black metal's cold malice with thrash's relentless velocity. The result is lean, aggressive, and uncompromising.

Auburn, California's Those Who Live in Death formed in 2025, making them one of the newest entries in the American black metal underground. Drawing from the genre's traditional arsenal of blast-beaten fury and bleak atmosphere, the project is still in its nascent stages but arrives with a name that signals death-fixated intent.

Formed in 2023 in the Bay Area underground, Oakland's Threnodist blends black metal's corrosive intensity with shoegaze's hazy, immersive textures, creating a sound that is simultaneously abrasive and dreamlike.

Hailing from the high-altitude isolation of Mammoth Lakes, California, Through These Gates have been forging black/death metal since 2012, combining the cold tremolo aggression of black metal with the gutting brutality of death.

Wilmington, California's Thulcandra take raw black metal to its most unvarnished extreme, honing a deliberately lo-fi, confrontational approach since 2010 that strips the genre down to its most hostile and primitive elements.

San Diego's Thunder Demon have been operating at the thrash-black crossroads since 2014, injecting black metal's cold malice into a thrash framework that keeps the energy volatile and the attack relentless.

A Citrus Heights, California raw black metal project that surfaced in 2025, Thy Lamentum embraces the stripped-down, buzzing ferocity of the raw black metal underground, building music that prioritizes atmosphere and misery over technical display. Brand new to the scene, they arrive from a Sacramento suburb with the urgency and bleak focus the subgenre demands.

San Francisco's Tired Lord have been mining a raw, cold strain of black metal since 2017, favoring stripped-back production and a bleak atmosphere that fits naturally in the Bay Area's long tradition of underground extremity.

Named with the menace of Cormac McCarthy's most savage characters, Eureka, California's Toadvine play black/thrash with a feral, punk-stained edge — raw, fast, and mean since their 2019 formation on the Northern California coast.