Old Man Gloom are, in essence, a Frankenstein-like music group. It is comprised of parts from various heavy underground bands. The two standout individuals in OMG are Aaron Turner (ISIS) and Nate Newton (Converge). Luckily, I was able to get my hands on their new record.
The release starts out with haunting sounds that carry their way through the rest of the album. There’s certainly no shortage of brutality throughout NO. Just as soon as the music terrorizes its way into the listener’s ears, “Common Species” allows for Turner to take the spotlight with his growling vocals and dark, gritty guitar playing. A personal favorite track of mine is “To Carry The Flame,” for its reference to an old Tom Cruise flick. There is a line at the end where Newton shouts out, “Higher higher, burning fire, making music like a choir.” This is the very same line chanted by the goblins trying to summon the lord of darkness in a cave in the 1985 classic, Legend. It goes without saying that this sort of reference in a band as heavy as this is just plain badass.
Although Aaron Turner has always demonstrated his influences in post-metal with ISIS, in Old Man Gloom, it’s even clearer. The space between songs and the feedback through scary noises is what lets us feel like this vibe is going back to its Neurosis-sounding roots. For a band that began as a recording project and hasn’t released anything new since 2004, Old Man Gloom certainly blew me away with their new record.
In A Word: Haunting
