Fans of Mastodon or other earth-shaking, progressive-tinged sludge need to listen to Somnuri‘s debut album. On their self-titled debut, the Brooklyn-based group blend styles and take risks in a catchy way that is uniquely Somnuri. Listen to the full album exclusively through Decibel and read an interview with the band below. Somnuri is out tomorrow on Magnetic Eye.
Somnuri by Somnuri
This new album is Somnuri’s debut. How do you feel that this first release (other than your 2015 demo) represents the sound you were striving for when writing and recording this album?
From the beginning, it was clear that we didn’t want to feel inhibited or adhere to any boundaries stylistically. We mixed and produced the record ourselves, so that gave us a lot of freedom to experiment along the way. We also went for a live feel with no click track, which helped keep things raw. We’re proud of the fact that no two songs really sound the same, yet the record as a whole feels cohesive. The end result was very much what we strived for and we think it represents us well.
There are a lot of influences at play here; what was influencing you, whether it was music, books, film or something else?
We all come from bands that span different genres of heavy music. So for us, it was just about being influenced by each other and how we felt at that moment. It was more like we were unlocking each song as we went along, rather than writing in a traditional sense.
What themes did you explore on this album, lyrically or musically?
A couple main themes are dream states and navigating the subconscious. Musically, we felt this album was a way of opening a portal into that realm and to explore it and understand it better, we now need to keep moving forward through it.
What comes next from Somnuri? Will you take the band on the road or go into the next album, or do you take a break now?
We feel like we’ve hit the ground running. There’s a lot of new material written and we’re excited to start exploring those ideas more. We think our live show is equally important for people to experience and we plan on playing regionally and spiraling out, eventually doing longer runs by next spring and summer. Fans will see and hear more from us very soon!
The post Full Album Stream: Somnuri – “Somnuri” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.
