1914 is a Ukrainian blackened death metal and doom metal band formed in Lviv in 2014, dedicated entirely to documenting the history and human cost of the First World War. Founded by Dmytro "Kumar" Ternuschak, the band weaves period speech samples, battle sounds, and archival recordings into dense, historically grounded compositions across albums including The Blind Leading the Blind (2018), Where Fear and Weapons Meet (2021), and Viribus Unitis (2025) on Napalm Records. Their meticulous conceptual approach and emotional weight have distinguished them within extreme metal's crowded field of historically-themed acts.

Formed in Stockholm, Sweden in 1989 by drummer Joakim Sterner and guitarist David Parland, Necrophobic built their reputation on a ferocious synthesis of Swedish death metal and black metal, rooted in the aesthetic of Slayer's Reign in Blood. Their 1993 debut The Nocturnal Silence established the template they would refine across a decade of records, with Darkside (1997) and Bloodhymns (2002) cementing their blackened edge. The band has remained consistently active, releasing Mark of the Necrogram (2018) and Dawn of the Damned (2020) to renewed critical attention.

VLTIMAS is an extreme metal supergroup formed in 2015, uniting Norwegian guitarist Rune "Blasphemer" Eriksen (ex-Mayhem, Aura Noir), American vocalist David Vincent (ex-Morbid Angel), and Canadian drummer Flo Mounier of Cryptopsy. The band's blackened death metal sound synthesizes the cold Scandinavian riff architecture associated with Eriksen's black metal past with the brutal American death metal traditions represented by his bandmates. Their debut Something Wicked Marches In (2019) and follow-up EPIC, both released on Season of Mist, established them as one of the genre's most formidable recent collaborations.