More on the hard rock side than the "metal" side...
THE DEADTHINGS
I always plug these guys but fuck they are unreal. heavy sleaze/glam with horror themes. Somewhere between early Motley Crue, The Misfits, early Poison, Pretty Boy Floyd and Erotic Suicide and all the super-attitude driven Hollywood glam stuff, Alice Cooper (lyrically), Twisted Sister (huge "shout" choruses), and Wednesday 13/Murderdolls. One of the most entertaining live bands around, a recent show at the Prince of Wales was probably the best set I've seen a local band ever do. They come out firing and always make sure they give that something extra to stand out from all the other bands and make sure they steal the show, and deliver the whole package - great songs (all anthems that get stuck in your head), big sound, dripping with attitude, heavy on image & stage props, and high energy performance.
TEARGAS
Melodic hard rock somewhere between Winger, Dokken, Bon Jovi, Danger Danger, etc. Excellent lead guitarist, and mainly just alot of great songs like What If It's Me, Bridges Are Burned, I Wish, Crazy, Light A Candle etc.
THE SHINE
These guys have been doing it for ages but have fnie tuned their show and everything... Always super-entertaining with catchy anthems, synchronized stage moves, outrageous custumes, lots of crowd participation, and a HILARIOUS frontman who adds alot of comedy to the show as well. Their sound is somewhere between classic KISS, '70s glam (Sweet, Cheap Trick, etc), and some '80s glam/hard rock.
CHARING CROSS
On a bit of a hiatus at the moment looking for a new bassist, but a great hard rock/metal band in the vein of Appetite For Destruction era Guns N Roses but with more shred style soloing... very guitar driven hard rock. Good songs, great riffs, just an awesome '80s style heavy guitar hard rock/metal band. When they opened up the night at a Deadthings & Teargas show at The Espy last December everyone was shocked at how good they were.