Progressive metal band from Westminster, California, focused on technical musicianship and elaborate song structures characteristic of the genre.

San Francisco, California three-piece brutal death metal and slam band formed in 2007, evolving from a noise project into a full-force practitioner of slam's rhythmically punishing style, with their 2011 album Orgasmica showcasing their established sound.

Los Angeles, California death metal band playing in the tradition of the West Coast death metal underground with a dark and aggressive approach.

Ceremony formed in Rohnert Park, California in 2005, releasing their debut EP Ruined on Malfunction Records that same year and quickly establishing themselves in the California hardcore underground with a raw powerviolence-adjacent approach. Over subsequent albums, the band underwent a deliberate stylistic migration through 1980s-influenced hardcore, garage rock, and post-punk, exploring a range of sounds while retaining an underlying confrontational energy. They have released six studio albums and remain active.

Cerulean is a Tucson-area act blending black and death metal into a harsh, extreme sound that draws from both genres' most punishing tendencies. Their material combines blackened dissonance with death metal brutality.

Cessation is a San Diego, California funeral doom metal band crafting extraordinarily slow, grief-laden compositions built on crushing low-end riffs and bleak, suffocating atmosphere. Their work sits at the extreme end of the doom spectrum, prioritizing heaviness and despair over accessibility.

Cetacean is a Los Angeles, California doom and sludge metal band building massive, slow-moving compositions out of grinding riffs and oppressive low-end heaviness. Their sound evokes the oceanic enormity suggested by their name, blending Southern-inflected sludge with crushing doom.

Cetus is a Ventura, California band merging black and death metal extremity into a ferocious, uncompromising sound drawing on both genres' most aggressive elements. Their work captures the raw, underground energy of the California extreme metal scene.

Chaahk is a black metal band from Riverside, California, drawing thematic inspiration from Mesoamerican mythology — specifically the Maya rain and storm deity for whom they are named. Their sound channels raw aggression through a lens of ancient, pre-Columbian darkness.