SOMA
West Babylon, New York, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
Since 2006 Soma has been making music and they have a long list of accomplishments. Aside from working with Grammy Nominated Producer Anthony Gallo they were the winners of the 2008 Club Loaded Unsigned Band Festival and semi-finalists in the 2007 Long Island Music Festival. Their latest album is called Voices released from Rift Records. It contains 10 songs of hard rock that are on the verge of metal. Make no mistake about this, these sounds are polished and can be played on any hard rock station in the nation. To be honest I would be surprised if they haven't been already. The songs have a ubiquitous mass appeal that would be attractive to a wide audience.
The album opens up with one of the highlights called “Jesus Freak.” The song begins with various media clips while the band starts to warm up. Within about 30 seconds they cut the sample and get down to business. The song has a strong verse but even stronger chorus. With the perfect amount of distortion on the guitars and the thunderous drums it creates a huge sound. Once the double bass drum kicked in I knew these guys weren't screwing around. One of the most intense songs on the album is “Trance Formation” because of the vocal performance and the stellar guitar. “Eyes Stuck Inside Of Boxes” decides to slow things down a bit - but not too much. Their marksman-like precision comes out on “False.” The metronome-like drum work drives the energy but the guitars provide the fuel. Along with some impressive instrumental work I thought the vocal harmonies sounded solid. The album technically closes with “Humanity 2.0,” which is more of a collage of noises but the real closer is “Psylence Speaks” which is their ballad hard rock style.
Overall, this album is really good but it also treads a bit much on commercial hard rock that has a hard time differentiating itself from an overpopulated market. Sometimes it feels as if the band is trying too hard and other times they just really nail it. Any way you look at it Soma has pretty much perfected their niche. If you dig this style of music you just found your next favorite band. - The Equal Ground
Since 2006 Soma has been making music and they have a long list of accomplishments. Aside from working with Grammy Nominated Producer Anthony Gallo they were the winners of the 2008 Club Loaded Unsigned Band Festival and semi-finalists in the 2007 Long Island Music Festival. Their latest album is called Voices released from Rift Records. It contains 10 songs of hard rock that are on the verge of metal. Make no mistake about this, these sounds are polished and can be played on any hard rock station in the nation. To be honest I would be surprised if they haven't been already. The songs have a ubiquitous mass appeal that would be attractive to a wide audience.
The album opens up with one of the highlights called “Jesus Freak.” The song begins with various media clips while the band starts to warm up. Within about 30 seconds they cut the sample and get down to business. The song has a strong verse but even stronger chorus. With the perfect amount of distortion on the guitars and the thunderous drums it creates a huge sound. Once the double bass drum kicked in I knew these guys weren't screwing around. One of the most intense songs on the album is “Trance Formation” because of the vocal performance and the stellar guitar. “Eyes Stuck Inside Of Boxes” decides to slow things down a bit - but not too much. Their marksman-like precision comes out on “False.” The metronome-like drum work drives the energy but the guitars provide the fuel. Along with some impressive instrumental work I thought the vocal harmonies sounded solid. The album technically closes with “Humanity 2.0,” which is more of a collage of noises but the real closer is “Psylence Speaks” which is their ballad hard rock style.
Overall, this album is really good but it also treads a bit much on commercial hard rock that has a hard time differentiating itself from an overpopulated market. Sometimes it feels as if the band is trying too hard and other times they just really nail it. Any way you look at it Soma has pretty much perfected their niche. If you dig this style of music you just found your next favorite band. - The Equal Ground
Discography
Title: Voices
Year: 2013
Format: LP
Engineer: Anthony Gallo
Mastered by: Garrett Haines
Produced by: Anthony Gallo & SOMA
Photos
Bio
New York based rock band, SOMA, has just released their debut LP entitled “Voices” on June 28. The LP was produced by the band and Anthony “Rocky” Gallo in Brooklyn, NY at Virtue and Vice Studios. "Voices" features nine original tracks as well as SOMA’s rendition of the Simple Minds’ classic “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”. The music on the “Voices” LP highlights the diversified sound that the band has come to be identified by. The band's lyrics tackle a wide variety of topics ranging from hypocrisy in society to individual struggles with inner demons. The original tracks provide a glimpse into the multi-dimensional music of SOMA which covers a range of styles spanning from raw powerful energetic rock tracks like the title track “Voices”, to a heavy progressive sound which is reflected in “Jesus Freak” and finally a hypnotic multi-layered ballad feel with the song “Psylence Speaks”.
Founded by Josh Cattell, Mike Murphy, Greg Golembiowski and Dave Powers, SOMA started as a hobby in early 2006. Over the next year the band began to hone and polish their sound and recorded their first EP “Leaving the Body”. Their second release “Living an Experiment” was recorded from 2007-2008 and saw the band working with Grammy nominated and award winning engineer Anthony “Rocky” Gallo. Released in May of 2008, “Living an Experiment” received high critical acclaim from numerous websites, blogs and regional publications. The release of “Living an Experiment” was followed up with extensive live performances throughout the local NY Metro. In addition, the band competed in and won the third annual Club Loaded Unsigned Band Festival which was hosted by Mistress Juliya of Fuse TV and Much Music notoriety.
Branded by their fans as 'mindcore', SOMA's style of hard rock is cleverly-constructed and radio ready. SOMA's latest release, "Voices" continues their unique tradition of powerful, haunting melodies overlaying unique rhythmic patterns.
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