London sludge/doom metal band signed to Church Road Records, formed in 2022. Their debut Crusaders of Joy features four extended tracks of devastatingly heavy, lo-fi doom described by fans as having all the groove of a wrecking ball.

Kungur (early)/Perm (later)-based brutal death metal outfit active since 2013, delivering relentless blastbeat-driven punishment and guttural vocal extremity. Their compositions trade in the genre's heaviest currency: slamming breakdowns, inhuman vocals, and wall-to-wall brutality.

Czech doom/death metal band formed in 2009, channeling the crushing weight of doom metal with death metal's guttural intensity. Their sound occupies the bleaker end of the Czech extreme metal spectrum.

German black/death metal band from Dresden, formed in 2024. They forge iconoclastic black/death metal from Saxony's capital city.

German black metal band from Malchin in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, active since 2002. With over two decades of history, they are one of the more established black metal acts from Germany's sparsely populated northeast.

Three-piece negative sludge metal band from Leicester, formed in 2021. Their releases including Writhing Between Birth and Death deliver abrasive, nihilistic sludge through a stripped-down, punishing approach.

Spanish black metal band from Cantabria, formed in 2023. They channel blighted black metal from the mountainous northern coast.

Finnish groove/melodic death metal band from Salo, formed in 2018. They blend groove metal's rhythmic power with melodic death metal's harmonies.

Bill Ward, the legendary founding drummer of Black Sabbath, hailing from Birmingham. One of heavy metal's most influential percussionists, his jazz-inflected drumming style helped define the sound of an entire genre from the early 1970s onward.