Somergloom took over Crystal Ballroom and Deep Cuts – 8/7-8/9
Returning for its fifth year, Greater Boston’s finest underground celebration of heavy music delivered the goods across three nights in Medford and Somerville.
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From its humble beginnings in a Somerville parking lot back in 2021, Somergloom has evolved into a late-summer institution for Boston area metalheads and the heavy-curious. This year’s edition switched up locations once again, featuring a Thursday night kickoff at Medford’s Deep Cuts before moving over to Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom for Friday and Saturday’s main events, and boasted one of the fest’s best bills yet.
A trio of Bostonian acts anchored night one, along with the punchy, doom-y delight of NYC’s Guhts. Main Era opened things up with an adventurous set that traversed its way from enveloping drone to way-out noise rock, while Lesotho’s powerful post-metal stirred spirits and Slow Quit’s blanket of heavy shoegaze brought the evening to a close.
Friday’s festivities were bookended by two weekend highlights in the towering funeral-doom of Tears From a Grieving Heart and the utterly decimating might of Body Void’s noise-doom-sludge maelstrom. No eardrums were safe in the immediate vicinity of the Orange and Marshall stacks populating the stage at Crystal on both nights, but BV had the most physically crushing sound of the whole fest for my money.
Providence’s Vudu Sister and The Keening – the new project of former SubRosa singer/guitarist Rebecca Vernon – lowered the volume if not the intensity with their respective brands of gothic folk, and Portland’s Lepra balanced it all out with a unique sound hinging on overdriven keys rather than a traditional lead guitar. Think something like Ira Kaplan’s keyboard freakouts gone deathrock.
Saturday’s finale ramped things all the way up with a seven-band bill that was all hits. Chainlacing, the spirited gothic rock project sharing multiple members with Thursday closers Slow Quit, gave way to the chaotic, cathartic genre deconstructionism of local trio A Monolithic Dome. Cowardice’s always-killer, anvil-heavy doom-sludge was up next, followed by the proggier heavy metal showmanship of Puerto Rico’s Moths (who I’d have to guess were the furthest-traveled of any Somergloom act to date).
Chepang’s self-described “immigrindcore” sent vocalist Bhotey Gore to the floor and kicked up the weekend’s first full-on pit with their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it barrage. Doom-bringing Boston mainstays Morne played to an enthusiastic hometown crowd in the penultimate slot, and the avant-metal supergroup Sumac – closing out their tour with Chepang – shut things down with their trademark twists and turns.
Somergloom is defined not only by its unifying sounds, but by its powerful sense of community spirit, and even a non-New England-based headliner managed to bring that full-circle. Though now a denizen of the Pacific Northwest, Sumac vocalist/guitarist Aaron Turner has plenty of ties to Boston heaviness via his now-disbanded post-metal institution Isis and the Cave In/Converge-affiliated sludge collective Old Man Gloom, which he made sure to shout out during a brief respite between songs.
And appreciative shout-outs – to fellow bands, venue staff and particularly organizers Stephen LoVerme, Erin Genett and J.J. Gonson – were about as ubiquitous across the weekend as black t-shirts and tattoos. This was a special weekend for the extended universe of Boston heavy music – as it’s been each of the past five years – and you could feel it in the air.
Check out a full gallery of all 16 acts from the weekend below.
