VOWWS are the duo of Matt James and Rizz, who describe their shadowed blend of post-punk, industrial rock, darkwave, and pop melody as death pop. The Great Sun introduced a cinematic version of that sound, with low-slung guitars, icy synths, drum-machine pulse, and guest appearances that connected the project to goth, industrial, and heavy alternative circles. Under the World refined the contrast between Matt's darker vocal tone and Rizz's clearer, spectral presence, letting songs move like nocturnal film scenes rather than standard rock arrangements. Singles such as "One by One," "Shadow Man," and "Wait" pushed the duo's writing toward sharper hooks while keeping the sense of dread intact. Their later album I'll Fill Your House With An Army expanded the recorded palette with outside players and production help while preserving the core mood: romantic decay, uneasy glamour, and melodies that seem to glow from inside machinery. VOWWS rarely rely on volume for intensity. Their weight comes from restraint, negative space, and the way their songs make desire, fear, and nostalgia feel trapped in the same room.

Riverside, California death metal band formed in 2020, adding another voice to the Inland Empire's long history of brutal underground metal. Their approach draws from the meat-and-bones tradition of American death metal, built on punishing riffs and relentless percussion.

W.A.S.P. was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1982 by vocalist and bassist Blackie Lawless, becoming one of the most notoriously theatrical acts of the 1980s metal scene through provocative live performances and shock rock imagery that earned them a place in the Parents Music Resource Center's "Filthy Fifteen" list of objectionable songs. Their self-titled debut (1984) and The Last Command (1985) were both RIAA gold-certified, and The Headless Children (1989) marked a critical turning point toward a more serious, album-oriented approach. With over 12 million records sold worldwide, W.A.S.P. remains active under Lawless's direction, releasing their most recent studio album Golgotha in 2015.

Wakrat is a Los Angeles trio formed in 2015 by Tim Commerford, bassist of Rage Against the Machine, alongside French guitarist Laurent Grangeon and Swiss drummer Mathias Wakrat, whose surname provided the band's name. The band plays aggressive, politically charged punk and alternative metal with clear DNA from Commerford's previous work, and released their self-titled debut album in 2016 after debuting live at the Viper Room in September 2015.

Formed in 2017 out of Arcata in California's remote Humboldt County, War Möth traffics in pure heavy metal with the isolated, self-reliant energy that comes from being far outside any major scene. Their name — a nocturnal thing drawn to destruction — suits the deliberate, no-frills approach they bring to traditional metal riffing. There is something unpolished and genuinely hard-bitten about what they do.

Warlago emerged from California's Inland Empire in 2021, conjuring black metal that carries the vast, sun-blasted strangeness of the Southern California interior rather than the expected Scandinavian cold. The Inland Empire occupies an odd geographic and cultural position — sprawling, overlooked, and a little unhinged — and Warlago's black metal reflects that dislocation. Raw, atmospheric, and distinctly of its place.

Warrant formed on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood in 1984 and became one of the defining American hard rock bands of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Built around the songwriting and voice of Jani Lane during their commercial breakthrough, the band combined glam metal flash with memorable choruses, guitar-driven hooks, and a willingness to move between rowdy rockers and emotionally direct ballads. Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich launched them into the mainstream with songs such as "Down Boys" and "Heaven," while Cherry Pie became their most recognizable cultural moment, even as deeper cuts showed a band with more range than the era's stereotypes suggested. Later albums like Dog Eat Dog, Ultraphobic, and Belly to Belly reflected a tougher, darker edge as the rock landscape changed. After Lane's departure and death, Warrant continued with Robert Mason on vocals, keeping the catalog alive while releasing new material. Their history is tied to MTV-era glam metal, but their strongest songs endure because of tight melodic craft and arena-scale energy.

Ventura County, California's Watch You Fall formed in 2024, arriving with a straightforward metalcore attack shaped by the Southern California scene's long tradition of turning beach proximity into aggression. They are a young band with something to prove, which gives their material an urgency that feels earned rather than performed. Metalcore from the SoCal sprawl, built for stages and nothing else.

San Francisco's Weakling occupy a peculiar position in American black metal — despite forming in 2011 under the name of one of the genre's legendary one-album acts, they carry that city's long tradition of underground weirdness and uncompromising darkness. San Francisco has always hosted black metal that bends in unexpected directions, and Weakling operates in that lineage. Whatever their relationship to the original band's shadow, they carry the name as if they own it.