Explore California Metal
Featured Album
Necromanteum (2023)
Featured Black Metal Album
Vertigo (Sunbather: 10th Anniversary Remix / Remaster) (2023)
Featured Artist with an Upcoming Show
Featured Power Metal Album
We Three Kings (Metal Holiday) (2015)
Featured Artist with an Upcoming Show
Browse California Metal Bands
26 bands found
Brand new to the Los Angeles scene as of 2025, Genocidist wastes no time merging death metal's gore-soaked riffs with grindcore's frantic, sub-minute assault. Expect short songs, maximum violence, and zero filler.
Bay Area band Geryon blends melodic death metal's emotive sweep with metalcore's rhythmic punch, crafting songs that hit hard while still leaving room for melody. They've been honing their hybrid sound in California since 2013.
Los Angeles's Ghost Hour blend death metal aggression with the suffocating weight of doom, crafting music that feels like dusk settling permanently over the city. Active since 2015, their death/doom churns with a cinematic, West Coast density.
Oakland's masked and anonymous Ghoul have been delivering horror-obsessed death/thrash and grindcore since 2000 under elaborate fictional personas, building one of the most cult-beloved bodies of work in Bay Area metal — grotesque, theatrical, and genuinely dangerous.
San Diego's Ghoulgotha have been tunneling through the earth's dark layers with death/doom metal since 2015, their cavernous sound drawing on the city's deep underground tradition to produce something ancient, doomed, and fully subterranean.
Named after a three-headed kaiju, Merced's Gidorah bring a corresponding multi-pronged assault of death metal brutality, groove-driven rhythm, and metalcore intensity. Their music hits like a creature that attacks from every direction at once.
California's Gingivitis take the goregrind tradition literally, pairing death metal's brutality with grindcore's hyper-compressed intensity and a gleefully grotesque aesthetic. Since 2022, they've specialized in punishing short-form attacks on the senses.
Salinas, California's Gnashing of Teeth have spent over a decade honing a brutal death metal attack built for maximum physical impact. Their music is dense, punishing, and utterly indifferent to comfort.
Emerging from Salinas in 2012, Gods in Graves pull from black, death, and doom metal in equal measure — weaving cold tremolo runs through cavernous low-end and suffocating atmosphere. The result is something genuinely sepulchral.
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California Metal Index indexes hundreds of California heavy metal bands across every subgenre — death metal, black metal, thrash metal, doom metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, grindcore, sludge, stoner metal, and more. Browse heavy metal bands by genre, city, or state.
Yes — browse California death metal bands in our index. Filter by genre to find death metal, technical death metal, and melodic death metal bands. We also index black metal, thrash metal, doom metal, and all heavy metal bands.
Use the genre filter to browse California black metal bands. We index black metal, atmospheric black metal, and related subgenres alongside death metal, thrash metal, doom metal, and all heavy metal bands.
Browse our index for California thrash metal bands. Filter by genre to discover thrash metal, crossover thrash, and speed metal bands. Our index covers all heavy metal bands including death metal, black metal, doom, and metalcore.
Yes — we index metalcore bands, doom metal bands, and every heavy metal subgenre. Browse California metalcore, doom metal, sludge metal, stoner metal, progressive metal, power metal, and more.
Yes — browse California hardcore punk bands alongside heavy metal bands. We cover hardcore punk, crust punk, D-beat, grindcore, metalcore, and all heavy music subgenres.
Filter by city and state to find heavy metal bands near you. Each band page includes streaming links, genre tags, and upcoming metal concerts. Discover death metal, black metal, thrash, doom, and all heavy metal bands in your area.
Visit our shows page for California metal concerts — death metal shows, black metal concerts, thrash metal shows, doom concerts, and all heavy metal events. Updated daily with ticket links from Ticketmaster and SeatGeek.
California Metal Index is an index of California heavy metal bands — death metal, black metal, thrash metal, doom metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, and all heavy music. Browse bands by genre, find metal concerts near you, and discover the California metal scene.