Columbus, Ohio's Sin Nombre — the name meaning "no name" in Spanish — have been marinating in the thick intersection of sludge and stoner metal since 2013. Their Midwestern locale adds a certain grey industrial weight to a sound already defined by heaviness, heat, and deliberate, grinding momentum.

Painesville, Ohio sludge metal band formed in 2014 — their name leaves little ambiguity about aesthetic intent, leaning into the devil's number with the unapologetic heaviness of a band committed to grinding noise and oppressive low-end. The Lake Erie industrial belt has produced plenty of mean, ugly heavy music, and SixSixSix fits that lineage.

Akron, Ohio band formed in 2012 playing doom-laden sludge metal rooted in the tradition of the Rust Belt's heavy underground, characterized by slow crushing riffs and bleak atmospherics.

Smoke Covenant is a sludge metal band from Columbus, Ohio, formed in 2016, grinding out slow, feedback-laden riffs and abrasive vocals in the crusty tradition of American sludge metal.

Sofa King Killer is a sludge and doom metal band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 2000, blending Southern rock grooves with the suffocating heaviness of the Midwest sludge tradition across more than two decades of activity.

Sparrowmilk is a doom and sludge metal band from Cleveland, Ohio, formed in 2017, trafficking in the city's tradition of slow, oppressive heaviness with droning riffs and suffocating atmosphere.

Spellchucker is a doom/sludge metal band from Cleveland, Ohio, formed in 2018, delivering slow, oppressively heavy music that fuses traditional doom's despair with sludge metal's abrasive, feedback-drenched textures.

Rust Belt Sludge Punk from the hills of Southern Ohio.

Stormbrewer is a sludge metal band from Columbus, Ohio, formed in 2011, crafting slow, distortion-heavy material in the tradition of Southern-influenced heavy sludge.