Gloom metal

The second half of doom-metal super group Old Man Gloom’s latest album, 2014’s The Ape of God, begins with “Burden,” the intro to which is about three minutes of paranoia-inducing feedback, blasts of harsh static and seemingly random guitar noises. Once you’re convinced that nothing musical is forthcoming, the guitar sounds are organized into, like, chords—perhaps a song is about to start—and you’re abruptly met with absolutely pulverizing, end-of-all-things metal riffage.

Overall, it’s a powerful effect; the sonic equivalent of uneasily peering into darkness, sensing that something approaches, then that thing turns out to be a rhinoceros that stomps on you for a quarter of an hour. When “Burden” drifts again into piercing feedback toward the 13-minute mark, it’s as if your ears are ringing from the beating you just took.

“We love the idea of taking a punishing riff and just driving it into your head and not stopping until you like it,” said guitarist and vocalist Nate Newton by phone from his home in Massachusetts. In anticipation of Old Man Gloom’s week-long West Coast tour and show at Café Coda in Chico (on March 2), the CN&R spoke with Newton about the band’s approach in the studio, its fondness for nightmarish soundscapes, and how it all translates live.

The band formed in 1999 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now, all four members—Newton, Santos Montano, Caleb Scofield and Aaron Turner—live in separate areas of the country. In fact, prior to their 2012 album, No, it had been eight years since any sort of Old Man Gloom activity, as each member was committed to other touring bands. (Newton plays bass in hardcore outfit Converge, Turner is most known for fronting former post-metal band ISIS, and Scofield serves as bassist for alternative-metal band Cave In.)

“We literally didn’t have the time to do it at all,” he said. “We were never all free to meet at some random place in the middle of the country and record an album.”

When the group does manage to write and record, things invariably get weird, Newton said. Some elements of Old Man Gloom’s sound are typical of the sludge- and doom-metal genres—low tempos, guitars tuned to drop-infinity, repetition, demonic vocals, and monolithic song structures. But the two-disc The Ape of God is made its own beast by frequent forays into experimental noise-making and downright frightening studio treatments.

“One of the things we really like exploring with this band is taking something that is easily swallowed and easily acceptable and sort of destroying it, then giving it back to you in a way that challenges you,” Newton said. “The idea is to completely ruin the song, and then make you like it again.

“You build a song that is catchy and fun to listen to, and then you make it unsettling.”

For the listener, it’s often difficult to identify the instrumental source of whatever unspeakable evil is slithering around in your headphones. In some cases, what’s physically happening is a mystery to Newton, as well—like when the relatively straightforward assault of “Predators” melts into a lengthy ambient outro.

“We went into the studio, recorded the song and sort of jammed out on the ending for a really long time,” he said. “Then Aaron took the song and did something completely different with it. He went into his home studio and changed the entire ending. It was a surprise to all of us when we heard it.”

How is that replicated in a live setting? On previous tours, they’ve used samples to fill the space. On another, they gave a nonmusician a synthesizer and told him to “just stand up here and make funny noises.” But Newton has no idea how they’ll pull it off this time.

“With a new record, figuring out what we’re able to play live is always interesting,” he said. “We don’t get to rehearse very often; it’ll be interesting to see how it will come together. … We’ll just start making some noise and see what happens.”