Hailing from Boston, Somos (roughly translated as ‘We Are’ from Spanish) are a four piece that are striving to make ambitious, melodic rock with punk and indie undertones. ‘Temple of Plenty’, their 9 track debut album (originally cast to be a 7 track EP), sees them recruit Jesse Cannon (Man Overboard, The Menzingers) on production.
His collaboration is a real coup as his expertise helps deliver a solid, rock record. But therein lies the problem. Although Somos can rock, their music lacks a defining signature; it lacks an edge and purpose and their sound starts very quickly to make you feel as if you’ve heard this all before.
Cannon has helped craft a safe, rock sound for Somos’ first full length-album: melody-enhanced with plenty of distorted guitars. It is great to hear so much care put into a debut record’s production but that said, ‘Temple of Plenty’ sounds too clean cut and misses any punch it could have delivered.
Directly from the opener ‘Familiar Theme’, a spacious sound echoes through, which (ironically) becomes the overall theme throughout the record. They get lost trying to find their sound as they push this sonic trick as far as they can.
It takes until ‘Lives Of Other’ for the band to really come out and attack a song. Taking elements of Interpol’s slow burning build ups, entwined with Biffy Clyro type hooks and breakdowns, it’s astonishing to discover that the band nearly left this song off the album. It is by far the catchiest track. With Michael Fiorentino singing “It started with as a daydream / It ended like a nightmare” over a pounding drum roll, it emphasises exactly what much of the album lacks: sing along, straight forward, attention grabbing choruses with direction.
Somos have tried to make a sound that fits somewhere between lo-fi rock and punk and have ended up stuck in limbo. Each song contains thrashing guitars switching to melodic plucking, which only serves to leave the listener restless. One minute they are rock, the next punk before heading into indie. It becomes frustrating as each part, separately, starts to work, but when they again switch to the next style you start to question what the band set out to achieve.
‘Temple of Plenty’ isn’t a bad record by any standard, it just isn’t anything new. It feels like a stepping-stone for a band still trying to define their own, unique sound. Whether that will be in the punk or indie style is yet to be seen but Somos do prove one thing with this debut: they can rock.
JOSHUA WROATH