With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

York’s delightful psychedelic drone noiseniks Soma Crew release a new album ‘Confused OK’ on 3rd April. It is their fifth album and coincidentally the fifth time we have featured them on WJAHOM. The album will be available to purchase via Bandcamp on CD or preferred digital download. The album was written during the latter end of the pandemic and recorded last year. According to the band the album “addresses the turmoil in the caged conditions of lockdown, reflecting on recent years of political unrest, public mistrust and personal mental health“. If you read this before the evening of April 3rd you can catch the band at a launch gig for the album at the Fulford Arms in York. I will be there!

The album opens with “These Careless Lips” which seems to describe anxiety about and fear of those in power. It evokes the finest moments that the Velvet Underground left us with. “Tranquilizer” has a very dark feel and has an eerie almost demonic guitar riff. This track would be an excellent inclusion on the soundtrack of a great British psychological horror film. The reverb effects that underpin the song are phenomenal and the extended close is full-on psychedelic. I sense a cryptic element to “Mirage” is it about the forced confinement of lockdown, is it about oppression or is it about someone fighting with doubt and confusion? I think it covers all three and so much more. It has the usual Soma Crew righteous riffing but the stand out here is a driving hypnotic bass part from Chris Goodhead. If you put Television, Spiritualised and the Stooges in a blender and had the about record a song it might turn out to be “Let It Fall”. The song is about finding hope after deception for me and I love it! Like many of us I have experienced at least a small degree of mental health issues and “This Illusion” describes the way people with mental health are treated by physicians and those around them. This one has a bluesy dreamy (or maybe nightmarish) vibe. The line “there is only I that is me” says so much more than seven words ought to. The long fade is mesmerising and stays with you long after the track has finished.

Who knew that Soma Grew could take glam rock and turn it into an obsidian twisted music fantasy? Well, they have with the magnificent “Another Life”. On hearing “The Sheltering Sky” I wondered if this might be what Jim and William Reid might have sounded like had they ever had the chance to collaborate with Marc Bolan. The first single from the album is also the final track, “Propaganda Now” which is accompanied by a stunning video. This is probably the heaviest track on the album and it rocks like an absolute bastard. This is a tune that Hawkwind would be proud of. Lyrically it is my favourite track, and there is some tough competition. On their YouTube page, the band describes “Propaganda Now” as ” lyrically informed by an awareness of the increased discrepancy between fact and its interpretation through social media. Participation in the dispersion of information is unavoidable in contemporary society, and it is virtually impossible to be sure of the veracity of sources. Visual cues are taken from historical posters where images are used to persuade the viewer of a particular point of view. In these circumstances we are presented with a dichotomy, and our innate circumspection is smothered”. The band is firing on all cylinders and Si Micklethwaite’s vocal delivery is his best on the album. If you have not experienced Soma Crew yet, get this album, you will not be disappointed. I had a CD copy of the album for review and the gatefold sleeve, booklet and the CD itself showcase some beautiful art and concepts. The really wonderful old-school touch of including the lyrics in the booklet gets top marks from me. By all means, download or stream the album, but the CD version is something special to behold.

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