Get acquainted with Brooklyn sludge trio SOMNURI.
Meet the Brooklyn trio breathing fresh and fiery life into sludge
“LEADING UP TO everything happening, we’d hit our stride. We had the record done and we were beginning to shop it around. It was winter, so we were coming out of that, feeling hopeful and hoping to tour and start playing. Then the hammer dropped.”
All good things come to those who wait, with any luck. Brooklyn-based trio Somnuri were looking forward to launching their second album, Nefarious Wave, before the summer of 2020. Once the pandemic poop had hit the fan, everything was put on hold as New York City shut down. Resigned to the fact that his band’s new record was going to gather dust for a while, Somnuri singer and guitarist Justin Sherrell focused on his day job.
“Everyone was forced to stay at home and sit on their hands and that was kinda counterintuitive to how we are,” he says. “Even when we don’t have a show we’re still writing new material and pushing to get that next show. But I didn’t really stop. I’m a bike messenger, so I was riding through the city, going through Times Square and seeing zero people. It was so strange, going through 40 blocks straight and seeing nobody except a couple of cops here and there. It was like something out of a movie, but way stranger to see it with your own eyes and experience it, like, ‘Holy shit, this is wild!’ you know?”
In normal circumstances, of course, Brooklyn is a thrumming cultural epicentre, with a proud history of producing unique and groundbreaking bands. In keeping with that tradition, Somnuri’s thunderous but versatile sound seems to encompass a dizzying spread of influences and inspirations, from scabrous sludge metal and tooth-rattling hardcore through to hazy, soporific shoegaze. Much more than the sum of those disparate parts, songs like rousing album opener Tied To Stone and the bewildering riff-riot of Beyond Your Last Breath are as forward-thinking as they are absurdly exciting. As
Justin explains, that esoteric approach came from a simple meeting of kindred spirits.
“At the rehearsal room I used to use, Phil [Sangiacomo, drums]’s band shared a wall with our band, so I heard him playing drums,” he recalls. “It really was an Aerosmith/run DMC, Walk This Way sort of thing, but nobody was Run DMC, unfortunately! Ha ha! We ended up in the hallway talking, bouncing ideas off each other, and we finally put it together. Before this I’ve usually been a drummer in bands, so it took me a while to be competent and confident in playing and singing, but once it came together it did feel like the right kind of music that we both wanted to be creating, with a little bit of every style thrown in. It was always organic.”
“I enjoy not fitting into a particular sound,” adds Phil. “The overall sound of the new record is really a continuation from the first. We had ideas coming out of the recording of the first one, and we’ve pushed forward and tried new things, experimenting and not getting lazy.”
Although they make no bold claims about having Nostradamus-like skills, Somnuri definitely struck thematic gold when they picked Nefarious Wave as the title of their second album, mere months before all viral hell broke loose. In reality, the title was inspired a brilliantly convoluted news story that caught Justin’s attention.
“So there was this prison break in upstate New York. There were two male guards who’d swindled a female librarian. They had this weird love triangle and they got her to break them out, and then they left her in the dust and the two dudes went off together. It was just this really strange love triangle and it felt to me like they were riding this nefarious wave. Each one had some deception planned against the other and it didn’t work out for anybody. One guy died. The lady got cheated on, divorced and sent
to prison. So we had the song, the name and the idea, and it felt like it could be applied in so many ways that it worked as the overall theme of the record.”
And then, of course, there was a global pandemic.
“Yeah, I don’t think it really had a full-on meaning [as an album title], but over the last year, with one thing after another coming, it definitely feels like it took its true form.”
With the bonus of stunning artwork by fellow Brooklynite Danielle Otrakji, Nefarious Wave is exactly the kind of invigorating kickstart that fans of heavy music need as some kind of normality looms into view. Somnuri have waited more than long enough to unleash the new album, and are already writing material for the next one. But before they hit the studio again, these riff-wielding adventurers have some catching up to do.
“It seems like things are about a year behind, festival-wise, so we’re aiming to do some of those next year,” states Phil. “But now, we’re going to hit the road, anywhere that permits it. Once it’s cool and everyone feels good about it, we’ll be going everywhere. Normally we’d be planning this six months in advance, but now we’re just champing at the bit, waiting for the get-go. We can’t stop. Everybody’s gonna be hitting the ground running, so I guess we just need to run a little faster.”
NEFARIOUS WAVE IS OUT NOW VIA BLUES FUNERAL RECORDINGS
“WE’VE PUSHED FORWARD AND TRIED NEW THINGS”