The all-star team of OLD MAN GLOOM, featuring members of ISIS, CONVERGE, and CAVE IN, have once again come together to take us on another sonic journey. The mountainous opening of lead track, “Gift,” sets the tone with cascading heaviness. Throughout Christmas, the band traverse various terrain; be it barren desert wastelands, jagged cliffs, or the rough seas. OLD MAN GLOOM understand how to wield heaviness to their advantage by using it to shift from atmospheric to in-your-face. The sparsely scattered noise/ambient and quiet acoustic guitar interludes provide diversity and a nice change of scenery to things. Though Christmas clocks in at just over an hour, one can’t help but feel that the music presented is a mere cocktease of what this unit is really capable of. Perhaps this approach was completely intentional. If that is the case, then OLD MAN GLOOM are even better than we thought. (Tortuga Recordings)
