Long Beach, California's Purging launched in 2025 as a blackened death metal act, combining the cold tremolo malice of black metal with death metal's brutality and low-register punishment. One of the newer entries in Southern California's perpetually active extreme underground.

Bay Area extreme metal mainstay since 2005, blending death metal, crossover thrash, and grindcore into a chaotic, low-fidelity assault that draws on the Northern California underground's long tradition of genre-defying extremity.

San Diego death metal outfit Putrid Tomb formed in 2020 and plugs directly into Southern California's deep well of old-school death metal worship, favoring thick guitar tones and punishing tempos over any modern sheen. They are part of the steady post-2015 wave of OSDM revivalists that has kept the San Diego underground particularly active.

A Long Beach, California death metal act formed in 2024, Pythagoras enters the scene with the raw aggression of the state's longstanding underground tradition, channeling direct and punishing death metal rooted in the Southern California heavy music community.