25. March 2025
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Somnuri – Desiderium

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Somnuri - Desiderium

Somnuri - Desiderium
3.9

Rating

 3.9/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Nice musical quality
  • Overall, really entertaining album

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Some weaker parts

Learning by reviewing: I have to admit that I haven’t been aware of the heavy metal subgenre of sludge metal, before I ran into the album Dsesiderium by Somnuri. Wikipedia defines this kind of metal as an extreme subgenre combining elements of doom metal and hardcore punk. Time to bang your head and dig deep into another type of rock power. The release date of the album is 21st July 2023.

 

Somnuri – About The Artists

Somnuri are a US-American sludge metal band from Brooklyn, New York City. They have released two albums so far, a self-titled debut in 2017 and their sophomore one, Nefarious Wave in 2021. The two currently active founding members of the band are singer and lead guitarist Justin Sherrell and drummer Phil SanGiancomo. Mike G. is the bassist of the band. Even though they are named to be a trio, there is also a new fourth member Chris Drapeau, who is already supporting the band on their current North American tour.

 

Somnuri – Desiderium – Track by Track

The nine track album lasts 38 minutes.

1. Death Is The Beginning

Death Is The Beginning – at least the topics don’t seem to divert too much in sludge metal compared to other “harder” and “darker” metal genres. Sherrell is already presenting a wide range of vocals in the first five minutes of album. Sometimes, the voice sounds rather hymnic and then it quickly turns into a grunting and shunting. I love the gentle transitions between these kind of sounds. By that, the song feels comparably harmonic.

2. Paramnesia

Paramesia, another single release is harder and more aggressive. There is more shouting in this song. With 3:38 minutes, the second track is also more compact than the predecessor, which even boosts the powerful character.

3. Pale Eyes

The third track also rather leans towards doom and death metal sounds. Again, the US-Americans go a rather unusual way and present a comparably short songs. Pale Eyes feels like a 2:38 minutes musical sprint race: full power, no time to relax – and don’t stop until you cross the finish line. That’s metal fun, indeed!

4. What A Way To Go

The fourth track is the last one on Desiderium, which has already been shared with the fans. The melodic chorus is definitely the catching element of the song. The short interruptions by shouting sections feel like just the right spice to heat up the song. Nice one.

5. Hollow Visions

Songs like Hollow Visions illustrate that Somnuri is doing much more than guitar chord hammering, shouting and grunting. The melodic parts of the vocals even have a touch of grunge to me. The instrumental part with the heavily strumming guitars, however, tell you that this song is written right in the heart of metal-land. The fifth track is very atmospheric and a very entertaining listen.

6. Flesh & Blood

Flesh & Blood does start quite straight, is then pushing a bit too much in my point of view. It feels to me that there are just too many layers of melodies and vocals piled on top of each other. My weak spot of the album.

7. Desiderium

Just when I start struggling, there is the title track. Desiderium beautifully combines the hardcore punk and metal elements. The song neither has too hard breaks nor too intense combinations of somehow dissonant elements. Very nice one.

8. Remnants

The second last song is coming with some rhythm alteration. Somnuri is also presenting a nice range of vocal parts again. Towards the end Remnants is heading to a full metal blast. I feel it is a bit too much again – similar to my thoughts about Flesh & Blood.

9. The Way Out

The first 30 seconds of the final track show that Somnuri could also work out in a rather quiet environment. However, they are metalheads – and they want to rock you hard in the last five minutes of Desiderium. The song feels like a final showcase of the abilities of the band and the elements presented in the whole album. This includes good times and bad times.

 

Somnuri – Desiderium – Spotify

Here is Desiderium on Spotify:

 

Somnuri – Desiderium – My View

The album does have some weaker spots undeniably. However, there are also quite a lot of good parts and fine listens. Overall, I really enjoyed listening to the Desiderium – more sludge metal is definitely welcome on Flyctory.com.

 

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