Columbus, Ohio's Hadak Ura is one of the more unorthodox acts to emerge from the Midwest's extreme metal scene — a grinding black metal project that fuses the frozen hatred of black metal with the frenetic velocity of grindcore since 2015.

Dayton, Ohio's Half-Lit brew groove metal with a Southern rock warmth, a combination that sounds loose and lived-in rather than clinical. Founded in 2019, they're the kind of band best experienced cold beer in hand.

Toledo, Ohio's Hammer Horde have spent over a decade building Viking-themed melodic death metal that earns its grandiosity through strong songwriting rather than spectacle. Epic in the truest sense, with sharp hooks buried inside the blast beats.

Cleveland's Hammr channel the blackened speed metal of the early 1980s with a punk-soaked fury that fits perfectly in a city with a long history of no-bullshit heavy music. Active since 2018 and showing no signs of slowing.

Toledo's Hanging Fortress have been carving out death metal material since 2018, bringing the grim industrial character of a rust belt Ohio city to straightforward, skull-splitting extremity.

Painesville, Ohio's Hangnail have been grinding away since 1998, their thrash and grindcore roots keeping them lean and mean across nearly three decades of relentless, no-frills extremity.

Newly formed in Cincinnati in 2024, Haruspex Chants mine death-doom's most ritualistic qualities — the genre's glacial pacing and suffocating atmosphere rendered with a deliberateness that befits a band whose name evokes ancient omen-reading. An auspicious debut presence.

Akron's Hate Theory have been working the fertile middle ground between death metal and metalcore since 2017, building a sound with the brutality of the former and the structural hooks of the latter. Ohio's industrial heritage informs their heavy, purposeful approach.

Flushing, Ohio's HateDriven have been delivering groove-infused thrash since 2016, combining the latter's riff aggression with the former's locked-in rhythmic punch. Rust Belt no-nonsense is baked into every locked groove.