Berkeley, California's Tholus have been developing their progressive death metal vision since 2007, fusing technical death metal's precision with progressive music's compositional ambition in a Bay Area scene with plenty of both traditions to draw from.

Burbank, California's Thomas Warner is a solo melodic death metal project that has been active since 2013, channeling the genre's Scandinavian influences through a Southern California lens with carefully crafted arrangements.

Ventura, California's Thornlord emerged in 2024 blending death and black metal into a ferocious hybrid that draws from both the brutality of death metal and the cold, malignant atmosphere of black metal. The coastal California origins add little warmth — the band's sound is decidedly grim.

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.

An Apple Valley, California act formed in 2021, Through the Oculus carves out a niche in melodic death and groove metal, blending hook-driven riff structures with the brutality of death metal's lower register.

Hailing from the high-altitude isolation of Mammoth Lakes, California, Through These Gates have been forging black/death metal since 2012, combining the cold tremolo aggression of black metal with the gutting brutality of death.

San Francisco death metal outfit Thud Bukit formed in 2020 and have been contributing to the Bay Area's long-running tradition of brutal, technically literate death metal — a scene defined by decades of uncompromising extremity.

Los Altos, California's Thy Virtual Machine combine death metal's brutality with grindcore's blazing tempo and compressed fury, taking their conceptually unusual name from computing infrastructure and applying it to some of the most extreme sounds the genre intersection can produce. Formed in 2020 in the heart of Silicon Valley, they're a wry intrusion of tech-culture nomenclature into the underground.

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.