Old Man Gloom

Born in the late 1990s around musicians split between Santa Fe and Boston’s heavy scene, Old Man Gloom operates as a collective featuring Aaron Turner (Isis), Nate Newton (Converge), Caleb Scofield (Cave In, Zozobra), Santos Montano and, later, Stephen Brodsky. The project develops slow, massive metal at the intersection of sludge, post‑metal, hardcore and noise, incorporating ambient washes, sound collages and experimental interludes. The band’s early recordings come as thematic cycles — Meditations in B (2000), then Seminar II: The Holy Rites of Primitivism Regressionism and Seminar III: Zozobras (both 2001) — which established an aesthetic of long-form compositions, abrasive textures and atmospheric detours. The release of Christmas (2004) marked a more refined phase of writing before a long hiatus, broken by NO (2012) and the two parts of The Ape of God (2014), which play on the boundaries between extreme metal and noisy experimentation. After the death of Caleb Scofield in 2018, Old Man Gloom carried on and issued Seminar VIII: Light of Meaning and Seminar IX: Darkness of Being in 2020, extending their exploration of contrasts between sonic density, repetitive motifs and sparser passages within the international sludge and post‑metal scenes.