Old Man Gloom

Old Man Gloom emerged as an experimental supergroup rooted in sludge and doom when former Isis guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner assembled players drawn from Converge, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and Cave In. The ensemble surfaced in 2000 with the stylistically wide-ranging Meditations in B and subsequently refined a dynamic approach capable of shifting between crushing metallic hardcore and ambient electronic drones on later works such as the 2012 release No and the multi-part The Ape of God issued in 2014.

Guitarist and vocalist Turner joined drummer Santos Montano to launch the project in New Mexico before the Massachusetts-based unit established itself within Boston’s hardcore and metalcore community. By the appearance of Meditations in B the roster had grown to encompass Converge bassist Nate Newton on guitar and vocals along with Cave In’s Caleb Scofield on bass and vocals. The group juxtaposes or fuses heavy hardcore and metalcore tracks with quieter electronic and ambient passages while its lyrics and artwork repeatedly invoke primates, scientific research, and evolutionary themes, as illustrated by song titles such as “An Evening at the Gentleman’s Club for Apes” and “Test Result: Alien Ape Distress Signal.” The band occasionally identifies itself as “the OMG Institute,” embedding cryptic humor beneath its intense, doom-oriented exterior.

Meditations in B appeared in 2000 on Turner’s Tortuga Records, an imprint of the Hydra Head label he operates. One year later the band issued the concurrent albums Seminar II and Seminar III. Electronics specialist Luke Scarola joined for those sessions, and Seminar II also incorporated lyric contributions from Cave In’s Steve Brodsky plus electronic work from Agnostronic Blunt, the alias of Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Jay Randall. Further releases arrived quickly with the 2003 EP Christmas Eve 1 + 2 and the full-length Christmas in 2004. Activity then subsided until the 2012 arrival of No, produced by Kurt Ballou. Working again with Ballou, the band delivered the two-part Ape of God LP via Profound Lore in 2014, earning widespread critical praise.

Bassist and vocalist Caleb Scofield died in a 2018 car accident in New Hampshire. The remaining members elected to continue in his memory, staging a tribute performance with Cave In’s Stephen Brodsky substituting on bass. Brodsky subsequently became a permanent member, appearing on the 2020 albums Seminar VIII: Light of Meaning and Seminar IX: Darkness of Being.