Cleveland's Methuselah bring a primal black metal vision to a city that has produced some of America's most uncompromising underground music. Formed in 2021 and operating under a name that evokes ancient, almost geological time, they traffic in the cold and misanthropic aesthetics at the core of the genre — raw production, tremolo-picked ferocity, and an atmosphere that suggests ritual rather than entertainment. They add a black metal edge to Cleveland's already dark and storied heavy music history.

Cincinnati's Milkman arrived in 2024 playing melodic black metal under a name deliberately at odds with the darkness of the genre. The juxtaposition isn't purely ironic — the band balances the frigid tremolo-and-blast architecture of black metal with melodic hooks sharp enough to cut through the cold.

From the small town of McConnelsville, Ohio, this trio of black, death, and thrash metal influences has been fusing extremity since 1993, generating a caustic blend of blast-driven aggression and riff-heavy menace.

Moon Witch is a Dayton, Ohio band formed in 2021 that tears through black metal, death metal, and grindcore in roughly equal measure, trading in speed and ugliness with clear enthusiasm. Their Bandcamp handle — moonwitchusbm — signals a commitment to underground black metal aesthetics even as the grind influence pulls them toward pure noise.

Moonlight Butchery is a Toledo, Ohio atmospheric black metal project formed in 2014, sharing a name with a San Antonio band but working in a notably different mode. The atmospheric approach trades aggression for texture and mood, favoring vast, rain-soaked soundscapes over direct confrontation.

From the small Ohio town of St. Clairsville, Mourning by Morning have been crafting cold, raw black metal since 2018 — an isolated, atmospheric project that carries the bleakness of the rural Midwest into their compositions.

Cleveland's Mystic Underworld formed in 2020 and blend black metal with ambient elements, pairing harsh, atmospheric black metal passages with spacious, drone-informed interludes that give their sound a meditative, underworld-descending quality.

Toledo, Ohio's Męka fuse black metal's rawness with crust punk's d-beat fury and political charge, a combination that has made them one of the more distinctive acts in the region since 2017. The Polish name — meaning torment or suffering — fits a sound designed to be both abrasive and relentless.