Oakland's Thane have been cultivating their death/doom sound since 2015, drawing on the Bay Area's tradition of heavy, serious metal and steering it into the slower, more oppressive corridors of the genre hybrid. Their music shares the grinding patience of classic death-doom — long songs, cavernous production, and a heaviness that accumulates with deliberate intent.

Santa Cruz's The Sun Must Die channel death-doom's most oppressive impulses — slow, tar-thick riffs laid over cavernous death metal vocals — into a sound that feels as though the California coastline has been swallowed by darkness. Formed in 2015, the project leans into the nihilistic end of the doom-death spectrum.

Sacramento, California outfit formed in 2023 that takes a notably wide approach, weaving together death metal brutality, doom metal weight, and thrash momentum into a style that rewards listeners willing to follow them through the shifts in tempo and atmosphere.

San Diego's Tideless weave death-doom density with shoegaze texture, producing a sound that's simultaneously crushing and immersive — churning riffs suspended in reverberant haze. The band has been refining this submerged aesthetic since forming in 2016.

San Diego, California death/doom metal band formed in 2023, merging the sepulchral atmosphere and mournful pacing of doom with the brutality of death metal in the style of the genre's earliest practitioners.

Tzompantli is a death/doom metal band from Pomona, California, formed in 2012, drawing on Mesoamerican imagery and history to create crushingly heavy music that stands apart from the genre's more conventional touchstones.