Soma - voices

Soma

Voices
self-released; 2013

3.7 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

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. 

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