The ’Gloom descends! The annual heavy music jamboree Somergloom returns as a four-day spectacle Aug. 6-9, spanning stages from the Crystal Ballroom in Davis Square to Deep Cuts in Medford.
Last year marked the festival’s fifth anniversary. The young upstart that was born out of the hot pavement at Boynton Yards now feels like an elder statesman on the music calendar, greeting the waning days of summer with moods of melancholy and infinite gladness.
The 2026 lineup reflects a curatorial wisdom that cuts across time and genre. Friday’s headliner Dropdead are hardcore punks out of Providence, active since the ’90s. Saturday’s headliner Junius are alt-metal locals, active since the aughts. Along with punk and metal genres, add noise, shoegaze, ambient, electronic and a million shades of blackness. The “heaviness” of a heavy music is about a certain state of mind and inflection of the spirit, more than mere decibels.
Along with the musical performances, the festival includes the work of light show artist The Dregs. Through a combination of transparent plates, colored dyes and backlighting, the artist behind the light show, Shane McConnell, produces illuminated effects via analog methods, generating psychedelic whorls that envelop entire rooms.
The schedule unfolds over four days, with two dates at Deep Cuts sandwiching two dates at Crystal Ballroom on Friday and Saturday.
Here’s some recommendations from the Indie on Somergloom acts to catch.
The festival opens with an intimate four-band lineup at Deep Cuts, featuring The Outlourdes in the closing slot, fresh off a rousing performance at Grub, Sweat and Beers in July. The doomy three-piece, consisting of Mike, Deb and Jamie, traffic in the aesthetic tropes and familiar locutions of metal while injecting the material with a dose of humor.
The Outlourdes’ latest album, “Humanity Is Killing Us All,” finds room for two swamp-themed numbers, “Swamp Hag” and “Misery Swamp.” Swamps: natural water purifiers, flood buffers and rich habitats, full of pathos. Magnatar, Through a Glass, Darkly and, of course, Swamphead open.
The action pivots to Crystal Ballroom on Aug. 7. Stick around to see seminal hardcore punk band Dropdead, but don’t miss queercore punkers KO Queen or posthardcore mavens Miracle Blood, which concludes its cross-country tour that night, earlier in the bill.
Local favorites Junius are also Somergloom veterans, having played the 2022 edition in the sweltering asphalt jungle of Boynton Yards. The band’s latest album, “Sotera,” skates along the knife’s edge of alt, metal and postrock. Expect heavy doses of the new material from the headliners, steeped in dark mythologies. Hail “Lucifera”! Show up early to experience the transcendent death metal of Boston’s Gloomlurker in the opening slot and stay late for the gazey slowcore of Pennsylvania’s Planning For Burial.
The ’Gloom rounds out with another intimate show at Deep Cuts, featuring a funk-metal variant on the melancholy with Eight Foot Manchild, Medford locals who used a healthy dose of horns on its EP “Do Spirits Return?” Sludge rockers and festival veterans Guhts open, along with the gaze-inflected Spirit Hotel and Providence’s Hemlok.
Many shades of melancholy, one festival, coming your way in August. Get ready to throw up dem devil horns.
About The Author
