Los Angeles' Highland have been working a raw and confrontational strain of black metal since 2013, finding in the city's sprawl and contradictions a fitting backdrop for music this harsh and austere. The project operates at the margin of the local scene rather than its center.

Born in Los Angeles in 2020, Hohlgeist fuses raw black metal with shoegaze, wrapping tremolo-drenched noise in hazy, atmospheric drift. The result is something hollow and haunted, as if the void itself has a texture.

A California black metal project active since 2021, Hollow Husk traffics in desolation and stripped-down hostility. What remains after the flesh is gone — hollow, cold, and unrelenting.

Hollywood Undead emerged from the MySpace era with an audacious fusion of rap-rock, nu-metal, and pop-punk, hiding behind signature masks while delivering anthemic party tracks and darker introspective cuts in equal measure. From the frat-house chaos of 'Swan Songs' to the more refined aggression of later albums like 'New Empire,' the LA sextet have built one of rap-rock's most enduring followings.

Holy Wars is the Los Angeles-based project of Kat Leon, born from the devastating loss of both her parents in 2015 and channeling that grief into a visceral blend of grunge, industrial, and modern rock. The project fuses gritty, guitar-driven heaviness with emotionally raw songwriting that explores the sacred and the combative simultaneously. Leon's unflinching approach to turning personal darkness into cathartic music has resonated deeply with audiences seeking authenticity in rock.

Holywatr is a Los Angeles-based alternative rock trio that blends grunge grit, metal heaviness, and shoegaze textures into a dark, atmospheric sound. What began as a solo act evolved into a three-piece outfit, with members Holy, Ice, and Turbo creating dense sonic landscapes on their album 'Red Heifer.' Their music exists at the intersection of 90s rock nostalgia and modern production, appealing to fans of heavy alternative music who appreciate both melody and menace.

House of Protection is the Los Angeles duo of Stephen Harrison and Aric Improta, both known for intense, rhythmically physical work before launching this project in 2024. The music takes post-hardcore and hardcore punk as a base, then drives it through electronics, trap percussion, trip-hop atmosphere, industrial textures, and shouted dual-vocal hooks. Their debut material introduced a compact but explosive sound: Harrison's guitar lines and vocals move between abrasion and melody while Improta's drumming supplies a restless, athletic pulse that often feels as central as the riffs. GALORE established the group as more than a side project, and Outrun You All expanded the approach with darker, more nocturnal production and broader alternative rock colors. The band's short history matters because the context is unusually clear: two musicians with heavy-scene credibility using a new project to shed expectations, make rhythm the lead instrument, and keep the communal pressure of hardcore while letting synths, samples, and club-weight low end shape the attack. The result feels engineered for rooms where rhythm and impact collide.

Santa Cruz, California's Hunger have been serving up groove-driven thrash with a coastal menace since 2020, built on mid-paced pocket grooves and riff momentum that pulls like an undertow. Thrash by way of the Pacific.

Los Angeles heavy metal band Huntress formed around 2007 when vocalist Jill Janus, a trained opera singer with a four-octave range, connected with a local underground metal outfit and built the group into a touring act signed to Napalm Records in 2011. The band released three albums — Spell Eater (2012), Starbound Beast (2013), and Static (2015) — before dissolving, their sound rooted in classic heavy metal with thrash and doom influences. Janus's death in August 2018 marked the definitive end of the project, though the band's records remain a significant document of the early 2010s traditional metal revival.