Old Man Gloom
Old Man Gloom is a sludge band, with many ambient and soundscape elements. They originally formed in 1999 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but are now based in Massachusetts. The group, formed by Aaron Turner of Isis and Santos Montano have now expanded to become a sort of supergroup in the Boston hardcore and metalcore scene. The group is less a band than it is a recording project for a variety of local talent. By the release of their first album (Meditations in B), Old Man Gloom expanded to include two new members, creating the following lineup:
Aaron Turner (also of Isis): lead vocals, guitar
Nate Newton (also of Converge, Doomriders): guitar, vocals
Caleb Scofield (also of Cave In, Zozobra): bass guitar, vocals
Santos Montano (also of Zozobra): drums
In 2001, a year after the release of Meditations in B, the band released two albums simultaneously: Seminar II and Seminar III. For these records, Luke Scarola joined to use electronics. On Seminar II, Steven Brodsky of Cave In wrote the lyrics for one song, and Agnostic Blunt (aka Jay Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed) contributed on electronics. On August 24, 2004, their most recent album, Christmas, was released.
Hydra Head
Mp3s: http://oldmangloom.bandcamp.com/
MGR
Mustard Gas and Roses (MGR) is an ambient solo project from Los Angeles created by Mike Gallagher around 2005, - the guitarist for post-metal band Isis, having previously been a member of Cast Iron Hike.
Gallagher incorporated more structure, more distortion, more dark foreboding into his almost-all-guitar aesthetic. “For me, these songs evoke more of a feeling than a concept-making this record was kind of a journey into and out of things making sense. I would always have some core idea to start with and then just keep adding layers onto it until I was finally happy with the outcome. However, often during this process the songs would start to make absolutely no sense to me and I would end up just chasing my own tail until I found a way to bring it all together. I do feel that the music and the titles of the CD and songs are extensions of this feeling, but I don’t know if someone would walk away from listening to it with that in mind.”
For the first time in Gallagher’s solo work, echoes of Isis occasionally ring across the stereo field-which makes sense when you think about it, if only because he wrote Wavering while Isis were working on last year’s critically acclaimed In The Absence of Truth. “I’ve been in that band for almost ten years, if they haven’t influenced me, no one has,” he points out. “In the past, I made a pretty conscious effort to not have obvious elements of Isis in the music I make outside the band, but with this album I wasn’t so uptight about it, and I let some rather Isis-esque moments slip in.”
Mp3s: www.myspace.com/mgrsounds
Heavy Breath
Heavy Breath is the sound of five (or six) friends making music together. Since early 2010, Heavy Breath has discarded formula and tradition in favor of making up the rules as they go along, creating a sound that has drawn comparisons to 108, Refused, Converge and others. They also like long walks on the beach and cuddling. And in the summer of 2012, they’ll be touring the midwest with Reservoir and working on a new record.
Mp3s: http://heavybreath.bandcamp.com/
$12 / All Ages / 7 PM
Tickets on sale NOW! http://manicproductions.org/tickets
