California's Shield Roar operates in the shadowed space where black metal meets ambient texture, using cold riffs and expansive soundscapes to create an atmospheric and isolating listening experience since 2020.

San Clemente, California's Shit Wizard merges black and death metal with a nihilistic, lo-fi edge, building a reputation in the Southern California underground for unfiltered, filthy extreme metal since 2012.

San Diego's Shrieking, formed in 2025, operate in the atmospheric and depressive wing of black metal, crafting bleak, suffocating soundscapes that lean into introspection and emotional desolation over aggression.

San Diego blackened sludge metal band formed in 2023, fusing black metal's corrosive malice with sludge's thick, punishing low-end into a suffocating and visceral sound.

A Los Angeles black metal project formed in 2025, Silent Thunder operates in ambient black metal territory — the kind of expansive, atmospheric sound that trades raw ferocity for long, immersive passages built more on texture and tension than speed.

Sacramento's Silvara have been fusing death, black, and thrash metal since 2012, crafting a three-way hybrid that takes the California death scene's heaviness, layered it with black metal darkness, and sharpened the whole thing with thrash's instinct for the riff.

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.