Of Mice and Men formed in Costa Mesa, California, in 2009 after Austin Carlile's departure from Attack Attack!, with Carlile and Jaxin Hall launching the band during the peak of the late-2000s metalcore and post-hardcore wave. Their 2010 self-titled debut introduced a volatile sound built on screamed vocals, clean melodic hooks, sharp breakdowns, and emotionally charged lyrics, with "Second & Sebring" becoming an early signature song. The Flood followed in 2011 and strengthened the band's position in modern metalcore, while Restoring Force in 2014 expanded the sound toward alternative metal and nu-metal-influenced groove without abandoning heavy riffs. After major lineup changes, bassist Aaron Pauley moved into the lead vocal role, and the band continued through albums such as Defy, Earthandsky, Echo, Tether, and Another Miracle. The current lineup of Pauley, Valentino Arteaga, Phil Manansala, and Alan Ashby has leaned into a heavier but more streamlined version of the band's identity. Of Mice and Men's catalog traces a path from scene-era metalcore intensity to a broader modern metal sound built around resilience, melody, and rhythmic weight.

From the Sierra Nevada foothills of Placerville, Old Moon bring a raw, rurally-inflected black metal that feels rooted in landscape as much as tradition. Since 2020, they've channeled California's wilder, more isolated geography into cold and unforgiving darkness.

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San Francisco's Ominous Ruin deal in technical brutal death metal with a surgical precision that makes their most devastating passages feel almost architectural. Since 2015, they've stood as one of the Bay Area's sharpest exponents of technically demanding extremity.

Los Angeles death/thrash unit Omnicide carve through breakneck riff structures with a ferocity that owes equal debt to early Morbid Angel and the Bay Area thrash tradition. Since forming in 2012 they have kept their attack tight, mean, and relentlessly forward-moving.

San Francisco's Ontogeny approach technical and progressive death metal as an exercise in deliberate architecture, their riffs interlocking like molecular structures across dense, intellectually restless records. Nearly two decades in, they remain one of the Bay Area's most challenging underground voices.

Atwater, California's Organ Harvester arrived in 2024 playing brutal death metal and goregrind with all the subtlety the name implies — grotesque, blasting, and surgically relentless. Central Valley brutality at its most visceral.

Late-'90s industrial rockers Orgy scored a massive hit with their synth-drenched cover of New Order's 'Blue Monday,' perfectly capturing the era's appetite for electronic-infused alternative metal. Jay Gordon's slick vocals and the band's darkwave-meets-nu-metal aesthetic on 'Candyass' made them fixtures of the MTV and Ozzfest circuit alongside their Korn-affiliated labelmates on Elementree Records.

Otep was a Los Angeles nu-metal and alternative metal band formed in November 2000, led throughout its existence by vocalist and poet Otep Shamaya. After being selected by Sharon Osbourne for Ozzfest 2001 and signed to Capitol Records without a demo, the band released two Capitol albums — Sevas Tra (2002) and House of Secrets (2004) — followed by five more through Victory Records and Napalm Records, with the final album The God Slayer appearing in 2023 via Cleopatra Records. Shamaya announced her retirement from music in November 2024, ending the band after a twenty-four-year run.