Even though I’m based geographically near Switzerland, there are few acts from there that reached my music bubble beyond the Alps. One of those is for sure Peter Kernel, and if you’re into fresh new Art-Rockish acts you have to check them out for sure. This link is useful for me to introduce my newest discovery from Switzerland (apart from the recent Eurovision winner, but that’s another story), since this band I’m going to talk about shared the stage with Peter Kernel in the past: SOOMA.
The swiss trio is back with a new album, released at the beginning of May, Drü (out on Gluttony Records): an incendiary mix of Post-Punk and noise with French-based lyrics. If you’re up to the good weather soundtrack with these vibes this could be your record for these months!
SOOMA’s live history is enriched with very well-known and yet really diverse names like Birds In Row, Zeal & Ardor, METZ and the above-mentioned Peter Kernel, and this new work just confirms why they’re a new name to keep an eye on.
Drü is a non-stop high-energy record, the dynamic riffs with the pounding drums form the base for the lyrics that seem like a long mantra with all the repetitions - it’s a dance, it’s a looped dance, it’s an instinctive moment to let everything out just like singer Yannick Consaël does.
The first tracks that open the record set the mood and the energy, you can pretty trace down the band’s character from the first listening, and this is a super quality! “D’Être Là”, “Vouloir danser” and “Sale”, their lyrics between memories and the after life don’t really reflect the high-energy mood of the record, but to me it’s one of those match-made-in-heaven where the sad lyrics are combined with dance-y (or headbanging, whatever you like) music, it becomes a physical process: dance away the pain (or mosh it out).
“Merle” and “Le vent” are more “lively”, if you can forgive me the use of the term, “something is waiting for me” and I hope it’s something good such as the “wind on my skin”, as it is sung. The sixth track, “Le vent”, puts together a lo-fi dreamy opening with a voice that in the first place is very low, almost daydreamy.
“La noce” is a “weird night out-fever song”, you tell me what it is about you think. I had these vibes during my listenings and I’m firm on this, I would headbang the hell out of this one.
“L’hiver dure” may be my favourite one from this album, I really appreciated the lyrics in this one and the pace of the song is a bit more noisey at its core than the others, definitely my cup of tea.
Drü closes with “Tout le sable” and “Damage”, the latter being the only track with English lyrics and surely the most “experimental” song of the album. Ominous sounds with a distorted and screaming voice that repeats only two sentences, I understand the choice to let it be cut from the rest. The final mantra.
