Los Angeles stoner and sludge metal act formed in 2017, stacking fuzzed-out riffs and swamp-heavy grooves against the backdrop of the Southern California heavy underground.

Stone Gnome is a stoner/sludge metal band from San Francisco, California, formed in 2021, fusing the Bay Area's history of heavy psych with grimy sludge textures and psychedelic guitar work.

Stone Sloth is a doom/sludge metal band from Santa Cruz, California, formed in 2016, embracing deliberately slow tempos and down-tuned riffs that capture the heavier side of the Northern California coast's underground scene.

Modesto, California doom and sludge metal band formed in 2016, conjuring thick, oppressive heaviness through slow tempos, distorted low-end, and a bleak sonic palette.

Long Beach, California sludge metal and grindcore band formed in 2013, merging the suffocating weight of sludge with the blistering tempos and noise of grindcore.

Visalia, California doom and sludge metal band formed in 2009, crafting slow, oppressive music that blends the tar-thick weight of sludge with traditional doom metal melancholy, rooted in California's fertile underground heavy scene.

Los Angeles-based Swartwoud has operated since 2013 at the intersection of black metal, sludge, and crust punk, with an ambient undercurrent running through their abrasive, lo-fi recordings.

Formed in San Diego in 2023, Terminating Death are among the newer voices in the city's underground, working the intersection of blackened sludge and doom metal with a sense of controlled devastation. Their sound layers black metal's corrosive atmosphere over sludge's lumbering heaviness — slow, dark, and entirely uninterested in accessibility.

San Francisco's The Burial Tide have been submerging listeners in atmospheric sludge metal since 2011, building music that moves with the patient, crushing momentum of a tide that doesn't rush because it doesn't need to. Their sound captures something specific to the Bay Area underground — heavy, deliberate, and shot through with an ambience that feels earned rather than applied.