Formed in California in 2019, Seas of Winter channels the cold, atmospheric fury of black metal into a solo project that feels both intimate and vast. The project leans into the bleakness the name implies — glacial tremolo lines, suffocating atmosphere, and a rawness that puts sonic texture ahead of accessibility. It's the kind of black metal that rewards patience and solitude.

Los Angeles's Sebek — named for the ancient Egyptian crocodile deity — forge a blackened thrash attack that's as feral and aggressive as their namesake. Active since 2015, the band channels the raw, speed-obsessed chaos of early black/thrash into something that feels genuinely dangerous rather than merely nostalgic. Their LA origins ground them in a city with deep extreme metal roots, and they honor that lineage without sounding derivative.

Fresh out of Huntington Beach, California, Secularis arrived in 2025 as one of the newest entries in the American black/death underground, combining the icy hostility of black metal with the visceral attack of death metal. Even at this early stage, the project signals a willingness to operate in the extremes where both genres converge most violently.

San Diego's Sergulath fuse orchestral grandeur with the raw edge of black and thrash metal, building a symphonic black/thrash sound that sets them apart in Southern California's scene since their 2018 formation.

Los Angeles-based Servile Conceptions blend blackened ferocity with death metal's brutality, threading cold, dissonant tremolo lines through a foundation of aggressive, mid-paced heaviness. Active since 2013, they occupy the dark and confrontational space where LA's underground extreme metal scene intersects with the philosophical blackness of the genre's European roots.

Santa Barbara, California's Seventh Circle occupy a darkly syncretic extreme metal space, weaving together the bleakness of black metal, the heaviness of death metal, and the grinding weight of doom into a single suffocating whole. Active since 2008, they've developed a reputation for uncompromising, multi-dimensional heaviness that refuses easy categorization.

California's Shadows of Depression arrived in 2025 with depressive black metal as their vehicle — long, suffocating compositions built around self-annihilation and emotional desolation. New to the scene but working within a well-mapped subgenre, their output leans hard into DSBM's characteristic minimalism and despair.

California's Shataan began as a black metal project in 2024 before incorporating folk and psychedelic elements — a trajectory their Metal Archives genre description openly acknowledges — making them a rare act willing to move between kvlt severity and earthy, exploratory rock. The combination suggests a project more interested in evolution than genre loyalty.

Sacramento raw black metal project that surfaced in 2024, embracing the deliberately primitive, corrosive production aesthetic of the raw black metal underground with unfiltered menace.