Author & Punisher is the solo industrial doom and drone metal project of San Diego-based mechanical engineer Tristan Shone, active since 2004. Shone performs entirely on custom-fabricated machines and controllers called Drone Machines, devices that grew out of his masters thesis at the University of California, San Diego, and which draw directly from industrial robotics and automation. His catalog includes numerous releases on Relapse Records, with Nocturnal Birding arriving in October 2025 and marking the first time a second full bandmember, guitarist Doug Sabolick, has joined the project.

Daytona Beach heavy metal outfit B.T. Saints has been active since 2016, drawing on Florida's deep tradition of hard-hitting metal to deliver a straightforward and unapologetically earnest take on the genre.

Santa Rosa, California's Barren Altar combine black and doom metal with lyrical themes of anti-theological liturgy and apocalyptic death worship, operating since 2013 as a fixture of Northern California's underground extreme metal scene.

San Diego's Call of the Wild blend heavy, doom, and stoner metal with hard rock into a thick, riff-driven sound that has been rolling since 2020.

Oakland doom trio known for their crushingly slow tempos and occult-tinged heaviness, drawing on traditional doom and death-doom influences to build dense, hypnotic walls of misery.

Hayward, California funeral doom solo project delivering crushingly slow, organ-tinged dirges in the Lovecraftian tradition, with a vicious yet mournful sonic weight.

Catapult-Collision is a young Modesto outfit playing heavy, slow-burning doom metal built on crushing low-tuned riffs and a suffocating sense of dread. Even as a recent formation, their approach reaches back to the genre's foundational bleakness.

Los Angeles avant-doom outfit blending post-rock, sludge metal, and keyboard-driven atmosphere, prioritizing organ and synth over guitars to create a uniquely sorrowful, minimalist doom sound.

Los Angeles sci-fi doom trio whose debut channels the analog grit of Sleep and Monolord into dystopian, riff-heavy slow-burn doom with DIY ethics and a futuristic conceptual bent.