Malachi

Malachi is a atmospheric sludge band from Milwalkie WI.  The members of Malachi have been/are in other bands such as Artimus Pyle , What Happens Next?, Laudnum, Conquest for Death, High on Crime, Skull Time, Fuck Face, Living Under Lies, Stab City Slit Wrists, Blood Eagle, FAME, Coward, Downer, Noisegate and Beneath the Lake. - Ya' know, just to name a few.
With lots of guitar riffing, a cello, chaotic noise, and sparingly used yet damn near perfect vocals, Malachi runs a gamut of styles and fucking kills it.
If at any point you start getting bored during the 12:18 Lifeless, wait it out because this shit turns on you faster than a pubescent teen, it gets heavy and angry quick.

Cull - Endling

Cull was a excellent metal band from Portland Oregon circa de 2007. If you exhausted the Southern Lord catalogue you still got Cull to turn to. Their 2nd and final release Endling is a lonely sounding, environmental minded masterpiece that doesn't stagnate even through the 14 minute and 6 second "make the desert bloom".  Try to find the Erosion Ep as well, and check out their myspace page description...
"Having discarded the macho posturing typically associated with metal, we work to actively create community and space for women in heavy music."
That's my gurrls...

Transient

Transient is a female fronted Grindcore band from Portland Oregon who after a somewhat long hiatus, is releasing a full length LP scheduled for release mid summer. This excites me very much because even though grindcore is traditionally not my "thing" i fucking love Transient. I got to see them a few years ago with The Communion when they came through SLC.  Krysta is a killer vocalist, and i think Transient is really uh... relateable... grindcore.  Seriously keep your eyes out for the full length album because all their splits have ruled.

Sacrilege

If you like crust punk you have to pay some sort of homage to Sacrilege. In 1984 this female fronted band from England started playing snotty lyricly valueable songs that mixed radical politics with hard and fast punk music. There is a lot to say about the band and not a lot that hasn't been said already so check them out for yourself.  You may as well start with the demo tapes available here

ALDA - TAHOMA

Alda is a atmospheric, folk-inspired, metal band of my favorite category, Cascadian black metal!
They have a shredding female bassist. I feel like their self titled album released in 2009 got an undue amount of shit talked on it, and weather you agree with that or not you should definitely check out Tahoma, their most recent release (January 2011). The growth of the band is apparent and the recording sounds really good and clean with just a little grit. You're looking at the typical Cascadian black metal fare of longer songs with intense melodies, guttural vocals and primal drumming? Wait what? The tribal drumming moments in songs like Tearing of the Weave, at first were a little bit of a turn off for me but if you hang in there its going somewhere and only builds up the momentum of the music more. They also employ a lot of acoustic guitar in the building up of songs. Alda maybe isn't anything you haven't heard before if you're into CBM but its well produced, and is a grade A example of ecologically minded metal that you could imagine being played at the top of a mountain or in a temperate rainforest. All in all a really excellent, surprisingly fluid album.
Also, how fucking sick is that album cover?

Preists

 A band like Priests probably gets pretty sick of hearing people compare them to riot grrl bands like Bikini Kill.  I didn't want to be that guy, and i attempted to review them without using that term, but it didn't seem honest and it wasn't working for me. So, here i go...
  If you, like me, sometimes resent that you weren't going to shows in Olympia in 1992, there is good news for you, and its conveniently located in washington DC.
Preists is like a breath of fresh air and a shot of nostalgia at the same time. The music is really energetic and obnoxious. Like a sugar high little kid jumping on your eardrums. You can hear the heightened energy of the band members come out through their instruments and the people in the band commanded so much attention that when they played in Columbus, I noticed them on the street and wondered who they were hours before they played their show. I prefer Tape 1 to the more recent Radiation/personal planes.  If you get the chance, go out to see them play!