Explore California Metal
Featured Album
Death's Forgotten Children (2023)
Featured Death Metal Album
Necromanteum (2023)
Featured Artist with an Upcoming Show
One Day Closer to the End of the World (2019)
05/12 @ The Basement East, Nashville
Featured Melodic Death Metal Album
From Days Unto Darkness (2019)
Featured Artist with an Upcoming Show
Browse California Metal Bands
103 bands found
Roseville, California's Chrome Ghost blends doom, sludge, and post-metal into a slow-burning, psychedelic heavy sound. Their music favors long-form compositions that build tension through layers of distortion and atmospheric dynamics.
Long Beach, California's Cloven deal in funeral doom and sludge metal, building songs around glacially slow tempos and crushing heaviness. Active since 2015, they've released material through Midnite Collective, including their acclaimed full-length Blackened Wings.
Chico, California's Cold Blue Mountain blend sludge and stoner metal into thick, sun-baked dirges, layering languid heaviness with a psychedelic undercurrent that keeps the music expansive and hypnotic.
Los Angeles's Conqueror Worm wade through death doom and crushing sludge, layering suffocating low-end heaviness with the kind of desolate atmosphere that weighs down on the listener like a collapsing structure.
Los Angeles's Constraints of Light explore the heavier end of sludge metal, constructing dense, slow-moving walls of distortion that feel as suffocating and expansive as the city that surrounds them.
Fresno doom and sludge metal band dredging up slow, corrosive heaviness from California's Central Valley underground — suffocating riffs, tortured vocals, and a deliberately punishing pace.
Los Angeles-based Crom cast an unusually wide net across doom, sludge, grind, power, and thrash, resulting in a chaotic and unpredictable strain of heavy music from the SoCal underground.
Oakland doom and sludge outfit channeling the Bay Area's long tradition of heavy, slow, and punishing music. Their sound is thick and oppressive, built on feedback-drenched low-end devastation.
Sacramento, California's Ctrl+All+Delete operate at the collision of black metal atmosphere and sludge metal weight, crafting dissonant, chaotic music that feels like a system-wide failure. Their sound is abrasive and disorienting by design.
Enter the Inferno
View all threads →Frequently asked questions
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.