Dayton, Ohio's Murderman traffic in brutal death metal and goregrind, piling on guttural extremity with the kind of single-minded dedication that defines the most uncompromising end of Ohio's underground. Formed in 2020, they operate in a city with deep roots in both punk and metal.

Cleveland, Ohio's Mutated Sex Organ came together in 2022 to play goregrind-inflected death metal and grindcore with the irreverence and gore-obsessed imagery that define the genre's most uncompromising wing. They fit naturally into Cleveland's long history of extreme and underground metal weirdness.

Columbus's Primordial Harvest have been pushing death metal into grindcore territory since 2020, writing music that operates at the intersection of structured brutality and raw, blasting chaos. Ohio's metal scene — particularly Columbus — has a deep underground infrastructure that rewards bands willing to do the work without industry support, and Primordial Harvest have embraced that ethos fully. Their approach favors short, violent compositions that accumulate impact through repetition and velocity.

Dayton, Ohio's Putrid Stu is a goregrind and brutal death metal project that leans hard into the absurdist, splatter-film side of the genre — a one-person or small-band affair that has been churning out crude, blasting extremity since 2018. The Dayton underground has produced some fierce acts, and Putrid Stu fits squarely in that tradition of low-budget, high-intensity noise.

Dayton, Ohio's Scrotal Erosion arrived in 2024 trafficking in goregrind and death metal with the kind of grotesque specificity that the gore-adjacent subgenre demands — absurdist extremity, medical-horror song concepts, and a sound that prioritizes repulsiveness as an aesthetic virtue. Dayton has a quietly rich tradition of underground metal and hardcore, and Scrotal Erosion continues that tradition in its most extreme, least marketable form. New to the scene but clearly committed to the bit.

Ohio-based Sepulcher formed in 2024 operating at the violent intersection of death metal and grindcore. Their music combines the technicality and brutality of death metal song structures with the explosive, short-burst intensity of grindcore, resulting in something chaotic and unrelenting. As a brand-new act they have already staked out an extreme and punishing corner of the Midwestern underground.

Skag is a Dayton, Ohio brutal death metal and grindcore band formed in 2022, delivering punishing low-end heaviness punctuated by grind-tempo blasting and guttural vocal extremity. They represent the working-class Midwest underground tradition of no-frills, no-mercy extreme metal.

New Philadelphia, Ohio act formed in 2023 that combines death metal, grindcore, and crossover thrash into a fast and abrasive style typical of the genre's more chaotic fringe.

Greenville, Ohio's Tomb Perfume arrived in 2024 with a death-grind approach that prizes speed and grime equally, suggesting a band more interested in maximum ugliness than technical precision.