Redwood City, California's Short Fuse play melodic death metal with a Bay Area edge — formed in 2017, the band combine Gothenburg-style melodic leads with the technical precision and intensity characteristic of the Northern California extreme underground.

Shortie was a nu metal and alternative metal band from Sacramento, California, formed in 1998 and signed to Earache Records. The band released two studio albums—Watching You Drown and Wipe Your Eyes—during the peak years of the nu metal era before disbanding in 2006. They remained a fixture of the underground California nu metal scene without achieving significant mainstream commercial traction.

San Francisco's Shotgun Facelift take the experimental and technical end of deathcore into genuinely unpredictable territory, founded in 2020 and building a sound that treats the genre's heaviness as raw material for something far more dissonant and architecturally unusual.

San Francisco's Shrakys, formed in 2021, bring a Bay Area pedigree to a hybrid of heavy and thrash metal — sharp riffing, speed, and a no-nonsense approach that draws on the city's long history of thrash aggression.

Los Angeles's Shrapnel, formed in 2021, deliver heavy and thrash metal shaped by the city's sprawling extreme metal community, prioritizing riff density and forward momentum in a style that echoes the early-80s heavy thrash underground.

San Diego's Shrieking, formed in 2025, operate in the atmospheric and depressive wing of black metal, crafting bleak, suffocating soundscapes that lean into introspection and emotional desolation over aggression.

Palm Springs, California's Shrine of Resurrection, formed in 2021, pursue progressive death metal filtered through metalcore's structural sensibility — ambitious compositions that balance technical complexity with the direct aggression of the modern heavy underground.

San Francisco's Shrinebuilder are a supergroup formed in 2009 from members of Sleep, Neurosis, The Melvins, and Scott Kelly's solo projects, combining stoner and doom metal traditions into monolithic, lysergic compositions that draw from the full weight of their members' combined legacies.

Thrash metal outfit hailing from Placerville, California, keeping the Bay Area tradition alive with driving riffs and aggressive, no-frills attack since 2011.