If you like any of these bands, give them a Like on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter, or buy a shirt, or see them live (or all of those things) and help support the local scene! If you’re in a band (of any metal sub genre) that is based in the area that this blog covers and would like to offer some free tunes for others to download, send me an email at DCHeavyMetal@Gmail.com and I’ll put your material here. All the bands below either posted their own music for free, or gave me permission to, or both, so download away!

Above The Altar is a metal band from the Leesburg, Virginia area. You may recognize their lead singer as Toby Gomez, the guy who organizes the monthly metal shows at Balls Bluff Tavern. The band has recorded and produced a 9 track album as a pay-what-you-want deal. They posted it to MediaFire here. If you like it, kick them a couple bucks, their Paypal address is abovethealtar@gmail.com
Facebook – Twitter – Myspace

Absolute Vengeance is a band from the NoVA/DC area that falls somewhere between melodic death metal, thrash and deathcore. They have four songs available as a free download on their Facebook page here, but you’ll have to “like” them first to access that part of their page.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Myspace

Against Nature is a metal band from Baltimore, Maryland. Their genre can change from album to album, but they’re generally in the range of progressive to doom metal. They’ve awesomely put their entire discography online for free download here. That might not sound like too much for a band that formed in 2004, but includes 14 full length albums and 2 EPs, plus some other miscellaneous recordings too. And if that’s not enough for ya, they also run a record label named Bland Hand Records which gives away every band’s mp3s for free (most of the bands are not from this area) and you can check that out here.
Against Nature: Website – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Apothys is a blackened death metal band from Northern Virginia and they’re pretty great both live and on their studio recorded EP, Advent: Doom. They’re letting me give away the first track off of that release, titled Venomcrest and that can be downloaded here. Killer song, give em a listen and be sure to catch them live some time.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch

Archael is a black metal band from Fredericksburg, Virginia. They’ve given me permission to post their three song demo online for you guys to download. They are mp3s and you can get them by going here.
Archael: Facebook – MySpace

Auroboros is based out of Arlington, Virginia and features Brian Blickle (he played guitar on the first Baroness album) as well as Rob Moore of Salome. Brian has let me put up five demo tracks he recorded, though he is playing all the instruments and vocals (except the drums) and Rob is not on these recordings. These songs are probably not the final versions of them, but they’re what he’s got to put out for now. You can download the songs here and pay what you want. That means you can get it free or you can give them a few dollars to help them pay for a proper recording too.
Facebook – MySpace

Aurora Borealis is a black metal band from Waldorf, Maryland. They’re pretty good and being really cool by giving away their newest album, Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything, and are asking for a donation if you like it. You can download it (and donate some money if you’d like to) here.
Website – MySpace – Merch

Billows is a doom metal band, formerly known as Old Crow. They are from the DC area and have a three song demo available as a name your price download which is available here. You can get it for free and if you like it I recommend giving them a few bucks to say thanks. They’re pretty good and have been playing a lot around the area lately too so keep an eye out to catch them live.
Facebook – MySpace

Borracho is a sort of stoner/doom band with a bit of sludge and southwestern elements thrown in too. The name is a slang term for a drunkard in Spanish. They pride themselves in their heavy, repetitive riffs and they’re definitely good at writing them. Check out the three songs they’ve made available for free on their website here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Concerts

Cassandra Syndrome is an operatic metal band with a female soprano singer (her name is Irene not Cassandra) and they are from Frederick, Maryland. They also use a Zendrum which is a weird midi based percussion instrument. I don’t generally cover bands out in Frederick but they play the area often enough that they are part of the local metal scene here. They’re kind of goth, kind of fantasy and mythology based, and cover themes of paganism and environmentalism too. They’ve got songs from their demo and their full length both available for free on their website, though I only included the material from the full length in the big download pack because it is newer. The songs from their demo can be downloaded here and the songs from their album are here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Chowder is a groove based stoner/doom metal band from Baltimore, Maryland. They’ve got a a free instrumental EP for download from Bland Hand Records here.
Chowder: MySpace

Death Penalty is a thrash band from Northern Virginia. They’re led by Alan Margazano, who many of you may know as the guy who put together the Mandatory Metal concerts at the State Theatre in Falls Church. Well, this is his band, and he’s given me permission to post his band’s song War for free download here.
Death Penalty: Facebook – MySpace

Deranged Theory is a death/thrash metal band from Northern Virginia. They’re very into things like video games and ancient warfare in the days of the Greeks and Romans. Their lead singer often wears gladiator gear on stage during their live shows. Pretty entertaining and the music is awesome too. They’ve let me post two of their songs as a free download and you can get those here.
Facebook – MySpace

Division is a thrashy power metal band from Alexandria, Virginia. They put out their latest album, Control Issues in March 2010 and they’ve given me permission to post two of the songs from that here for you to download and listen to. To get the songs Hunt and Short Attention Span Society just go here.
Division: Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Dragon Wing Begonia is a black metal band from Chantilly, Virginia. They’ve let me put up a two song demo of their material and it’s worth giving a listen. You can download those songs here. They’re pretty young but they’re already decent at putting a song together.
Facebook – MySpace

Drugs Of Faith is a DIY grindcore band from Northern Virginia, and they’ve made two of their songs, Memoranda and Fuller’s Prediction, available for free download here. The site also lists the song Never Fail as being available for download, but there’s something wrong with the site and it’s not there.
Drugs Of Faith: Website – Facebook – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Fierce Allegiance is a thrash band from Washington, DC and has four songs available for free download here. They’re one of the better known bands from the area so check them out if you haven’t before.
Fierce Allegiance: Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Concerts

Gründle Hammer is a death metal band out of Takoma Park, Maryland. I ran into them at the Corpse Fortress and they were handing out demos, which I’ve posted here for you to give a listen to. It’s not studio recordings but a board recording of them playing live so the sound quality isn’t super awesome, but it’ll give you an idea of their sound. You can get it by going here.

Gullveig is a black metal band from Hamilton, Virginia and they’ve made their song, Screaming Blasphemies At The Moon, from a split they did with Svierg, available as a free download here. Svierg’s side of the split is linked under their own listing below.
Gullveig: Facebook

Iron Man is a doom metal band from Gaithersburg, Maryland, and they’ve posted their entire EP Submission from Bland Hand Records for free here.
Iron Man: Website – Facebook – MySpace – Merch

King Giant is a band from Arlington, Virginia, with more of a stoner/sludge metal sound, with a very southern rock edge to it. They’ve got half of their album Southern Darkness for free download here, or you can pay $6 to get the whole thing.
King Giant: Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – YouTube – Merch

Loculus is a brutal death metal band from Ashburn, Virginia and they’ve just released an EP named Sinew. They’ve given me permission to post two of the songs from Sinew, Ocular Extirpation and The Mutilator, as a free mp3 download here.
Loculus: Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

Magrudergrind is a Washington DC based DIY grind band that has released a new EP for free download here (to much controversy, for some reason). There is also a free mp3 of a Pulling Teeth song on there too, another local grind act. Magrudergrind is pretty good so check this stuff out, and if you want more they’ve posted their self titled album online for free download too, which you can get here.
Magrudergrind: Facebook – MySpace – Merch 1 – Merch 2

Modulus is a technical death metal band from Woodbridge, Virginia. You can download a free track from their EP titled Neural Processor here. This is the oldest song I’ve posted here on the site, released in 2004, but it’s always been a favorite of mine and they’re still giving it away so included it for you to check out.
Modulus: Website – MySpace

The Neologist is a two person band, one living in the DC suburbs of Maryland and the other in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, but that’s still good enough for me to include here. They’ve put together a 12 track album they’re giving away for free and it’s pretty good. You can download it here.
Facebook – MySpace

An Obscure Signal is a metalcore band based out of Rockville, Maryland. They’re starting to get more attention on the national scene and they’re holding a contest right now for fans to basically make a karaoke video of one of their songs from their debut EP, titled Creations. For the contest they’ve posted an instrumental version of the EP as a free download, which is available here. You can get the details on the contest if you’d like to enter here.
Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

Orgy Of The Damned is a local death metal band from Northern Virginia. They’re definitely worth checking out live if you get the chance. They have given me permission to post two of their tracks, Reanimator and Awakening That Which Is Dead, as free downloads here.
Orgy Of The Damned: Facebook – MySpace

Palkoski (formerly the Seventh Gate) is a grind band from Fairfax, Virginia. The vocalist writes all the lyrics around his psychotic alter ego, Frank Palkoski, and their live shows are supposed to be the embodiment of that. They’ve posted an entire album for free on their website here. They also have lots of older demo material and the link for free download here. When you go to that last link, the site will ask you for a password, just hit cancel and you’ll be fine.
Palkoski: Website – Facebook – MySpace

Permafrost is black metal band from Alexandria, Virginia. These guys are pretty cool, they’re not only giving away their kick ass demo for free, but they’re the only band I’ve ever seen with recommendations (and links) written on the demo’s liner notes on OTHER local bands to check out. That’s really cool, we need more people like them in our area’s metal scene. Anyways, you can download their demo here.
Facebook – MySpace

Prodigium is a deathcore band out of Manassas Virginia. They’ve posted a free song for download on their Facebook page and you can get that here. I don’t know a whole lot else about them, but hey free local metal is still free local metal!
Facebook – MySpace

Putrid Servant is a black metal band from Baltimore, Maryland. They’ve got a four song demo they are giving away for free on their blog here. They are in wma format, so if you’d rather have them as mp3s, I converted them and re-posted them here.
Putrid Servant: Blog – Facebook – MySpace

Revelation is doom metal band from Baltimore, Maryland, that is made up of members of Against Nature. They’ve been around since the late 80s and have a lot of material, but you can download their latest full length album, For The Sake Of No One, for free from their record label, Bland Hand Records by going here. They have a lot of other free songs to download here as well.
Revelation: Website – MySpace

Revolta is a thrash band from Arnold, Maryland and they’re giving away their four song demo titled Thought Police for free on their blog here.
Revolta: Blog – Facebook – MySpace

Sacrum is a sludgy doom band out of Washington DC. They’re really bassy and heavy as hell. They’re giving away their three track demo for free here, get it now and prepare to be crushed.
Facebook

Salome is an excellent doom metal trio from Annandale, Virginia, and is really starting to get notice outside of the area. They have a free download available of their song Master Failure from their new album, Terminal, which you can download here.
Salome: MySpace

Scream/Ruin is a hardcore or metalcore band from Northern Virginia. They released an album this year, Restored, and have given me permission to post two of the songs from it, The Hospital Ghost and Unsound, for free download here. You can buy the album from them for under $10 here.
Scream/Ruin: Website – Facebook – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Slash Wednesday is a thrash metal band from Frederick, Maryland. They’ve allowed me to post their 4 song demo, Taking Out The Trash, as a free download that I’ve posted here. They’re pretty catchy so give it a listen.
Slash Wednesday: Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

A Sound Of Thunder is a local metal band with a female lead singer. They are having a contest right now asking fans to make their own music video for their song My Name Is Doom (which is about the Fantastic Four’s nemesis Dr. Doom). For full details on entry, or to just download the mp3 of the song anyways, go here.
A Sound Of Thunder: Website – Blog – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Svierg is a black metal band from Purcellvile, Virginia and they’ve made their song, the awesomely titled Christ Devoured By Supermassive Black Hole, available for free download, which is their half of a split with Gullveig (you can get their half of the split under their own listing above). You can download it here.
Svierg: Facebook – MySpace

To The Teeth is a metal band that’s sort of hard to define, genre wise. They’re definitely metal but they draw their influences from a lot of the different subgenres and it’s not that easy to pin down what they are exactly. They’ve got elements of death, hardcore, thrash and tech death too. Whatever it is they pull it all off rather well and you’d be wise to download their three song demo here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

Vestiges is a band from Washington DC (with some members scattered around the US) that describes themselves as being influenced by hardcore, black metal, crust, screamo, and post-rock. Whatever they are defined as, they certainly have some heavy elements to their music. They have posted their debut full length from October 2010, titled The Descent Of Man, as a free download here. They have also posted their October 2011 split with Ghaust (an Indonesian band) for free download here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Myspace – YouTube – Merch – Concerts

Warchild is a beer chugging party thrash metal band along the lines of Municipal Waste. Their shows are really wild and their tunes shred. They feature the vocalist of the DC rock band Rattler and they will shred your face off while you funnel a beer. They’ve got three songs available for free download here.
King Giant: Website – Facebook – Twitter – Flickr

Wolfnuke is a blackened thrash metal band from Hagerstown, Maryland. I found out about these guys at one of the Metal Mondays at So Addictive Lounge and they really blew me away. They’re high energy and very polished, and while the songs aren’t super complex, they’re very aggressive and fun to hear. They’ve got some tunes available for free here and I really recommend seeing these guys live too as they really unleash it on stage.
Facebook – MySpace

Wrnlrd is a black metal band from Arlington, Virginia and they’ve got a 3 song EP titled Aenmity Shining available as a free download here. They also have a 21 song full length named Pentagon available for download with a “name your price” option set on it here. They gave me permission to post five songs from Pentagon, which you can download here.
Wrnlrd: Website – Blog – Twitter – MySpace – Merch

Yesterday’s Saints is a metal band from Washington DC that plays a very quick paced metal style with clean vocals. They also share a drummer with Loculus, Albert Born, who is also the current drummer in Pentagram. They’ve got a new EP coming out but they have allowed me to post two of the songs from it here as a free download that you can get here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts