By Scott McLennan

Converge bassist Nate Newton joked that, if it were left to him, he would have called this event “The Night of Seven Savage Weirdos”. Though when everything finally came together, even more weirdos were added to the mix.

Converge — the band decided to create its own festival of heavy metal and hardcore groups. Photo: Jason Zucco

Even within the realm of extreme heavy metal and hardcore, where no noise is beyond reproach, Converge has been a band that shatters the norms.

So, when it came time to give a name to the daylong festival the members of Converge personally curated, they settled on the poignantly uninviting Saddest Day 2025. But, before you write off Converge as a bunch of misanthropes, “The Saddest Day” is also the title of a song that the band recorded in 1996. The tune came along at a time when the band’s unique sound was taking form. And, of course, it serves as a self-consciously comic, distinctly unjoyful moniker for a show that’s being presented in the holiday season

Converge bassist Nate Newton joked that, if it were left to him, he would have called this event “The Night of Seven Savage Weirdos”. Though when everything finally came together, even more weirdos were added to the mix.

The bands assembled to join headliners Converge for the December 13 festivities at Brighton’s Roadrunner include Touche Amore, Coalesce, The Hope Conspiracy, Full of Hell, Soul Glo, Year of the Knife, Stress Positions, and Wormwood. The event will also include an exhibition of artworks by Thomas Hooper, Nightswim Project, Converge singer Jacob Bannon, and others.

Saddest Day gets underway at 3 p.m.

Newton said the idea to curate a music event grew out of Converge’s frustration at the number of times it found itself having an unsatisfying experience performing at a festival. Instead of hoping that an invitation to an acceptable fest would come along, the members of Converge fell back on its do-it-yourself ethic. The troupe gathered bands that they liked and wanted to play with.

That said, the Saddest Day lineup is more than just a reunion of old friends. Stress Positions, for example, is a band that Converge wasn’t all that familiar with until it performed with the group earlier this year in Chicago.

“They tore the roof off the place. They were the first band I put on the list,” Newton said when asked about drafting a lineup for the Saddest Day.

Also, Soul Glo is a band that Converge hasn’t worked with but whose members they have admired. Rather than wait for a promoter to put the two bands together, Converge invited the frenetic Philadelphia hardcore troupe to be part of the inaugural Saddest Day. Year of the Knife is another next-generation progressive hardcore band that brings fresh, artistic vitality to the brutal music.

The rest of the lineup includes bands that have plenty of shared experiences with Converge, some as touring partners, some as participants in split record releases, and a few who have done both.

Wormwood and The Hope Conspiracy are heavy bands based in Boston that rarely perform, but have strong ties to the city’s heavy-music underground.

Coalesce is working on releasing new music this year. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Coalesce came up in the progressive hardcore scene of the late ’90s with Converge. The two bands have released a joint recording and have played plenty of shows together. Most recently, Coalesce and Converge put out an album of their respective live sets from a 1996 show at New York’s legendary CBGB.

Full of Hell is a band that was inspired by Converge when it forged its brutally aggressive sound 15 years ago. Since then, the two groups have become fellow travelers trekking the heavy music underground.

Touche Amore practices a more melodic brand of hardcore, but it is another band that Converge considers to be a kindred spirit. The two bands have been sharing bills — and a friendship — for more than a decade.

While the bands selected to play during the Saddest Day come from many different places — sonically and physically — and from a variety of eras of hardcore, Newton sees a common thread running through the lineup.

“We’re not interested in working with careerists. We want to work with lifers,” Newton said. “These bands aren’t motivated by fame and money. They are interested in creating the music they are passionate about, and it’s music we want to hear and share.”

Coalesce got together for a few shows last year for the first time since the band broke up in 2010. One of those concerts happened to be with the band Cave In, which Newton also plays with. One thing led to another, and Coalesce is coming to Boston for its first shows in the city in roughly 20 years.

Known for its pulverizing sound and live performances, Coalesce is working on new music to be released next year. Singer Sean Ingram wanted to emphasize that the band’s return isn’t fueled by nostalgia. “We asked ourselves, ‘Do you have something new to offer?’ and if not, why do this anymore? That’s our opinion,” Ingram said. He explained that the band has been looking critically at its past work, trying to figure out how to make a sound that was pioneering — 30 years ago — come off as fresh today. He also noted that, as Coalesce was creating new music. It was also trying out new approaches, especially looking for ways to add breathing room to its dense assault of sound.

“Coalesce has always been a band that is willing to take risks,” he said, recognizing that hardcore and heavy music have undergone all sorts of mutations since Coalesce was last dominant on the scene.

“I’m in a hardcore band and I go to a lot of hardcore shows with my son who’s 19, and I think, ‘Oh, I’m not in a hardcore band,’” Ingram cracked.

But he genuinely admires how the music has grown and multi-generational fan base that makes up the hardcore community.

“People who grew up in the scene are now taking their kids to punk rock shows. It’s like we’re shaping our own future,” he said.

And, in some cases, the bands themselves provide familial support to each other.

“Nate (Newton) was the first nonfamily member who called me when I had a kid,” said Full of Hell singer Dylan Walker. “There’s a whole network of functioning dads in punk rock.” Walker went on to say that bands like his, Converge, and the others on Saddest Day are living a lifestyle as much as they are part of a subgenre of rock ’n’ roll, one that prizes values like freedom. “At first, I couldn’t play the music I heard in my head,” Walker said. “But you come to accept the band as an organism, and you listen to what is happening in the band and work off of that. Your ego gets tempered over the years, and it becomes less about what you want and more about what the band needs.”

Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker in action. Photo: Sam McLellan

In the case of Full of Hell, when the band is in peak form it weaves melodic riffs into a maelstrom of death-growl vocals, electronic noise, and crashing rhythms. The band can roam from the apocalyptic meltdown of “Armory of Obsidian Glass” from 2019’s Weeping Choir to the more straightforward hardcore sound found on the EP Broken Sword, Rotten Shield released last May.

Walker said he is impressed by the growth of the heavy music underground, and how many bands are taking unconventional, challenging, and aggressive music into uncharted territories. As an example, he points to one of the spinoffs of black metal, dungeon synth. “It’s like there are all these secret worlds out there,” he said.

Converge took the initiative to give Boston a long day dedicated to showcasing some of those secret worlds. The weirdos among us should be very happy come the start of the Saddest Day.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.