SOMA at El Salón - Review by Mathieu Landry

Walking in ’El Salón’ at 4388 St-Laurent was like transcending space into the local legion hall of a small community. It had that high school feel, no frills, relaxed, mixed crowd, sit back, have a beer, enjoy the music. But I don’t recall drinking beer at a school event and SOMA is no high-school sound. They ride the distortion like rodeo masters standing on stampeding wild horses. Good luck seeing them fly off because they are tight on their sound saddle.

Front man Robert Piazza has a firm grip on a seemingly demented guitar and still finds a way to deliver high-energy original lyrics with a steady voice. While Rob’s guitar takes him away, guitar virtuoso Phil Leduc fills in with complementing harmonies and bassist Will Davidson lays down a silky melodic line to every song. Joe McLean doesn’t skip an opportunity to pound the bad spirits away and SOMA has the crowd getting into their musical cavalcade. You’ll soon figure you have a double-bearing mechanism in your neck as it smoothly grooves to their rocking grunge sound. That’s if you’re not already up on your feet.

It’s cheap to compare a band to another, especially when they have their own sound, but listening to SOMA, I was reminded of the hard rock of the 70’s, Pennywise and Nirvana with a splash of Beastie Boys. Thanks to SOMA, it’s nice to see that the rocking rock sound is not lost in all the commercialized polished noise that comes out of many mind numbing radio channels.

Review originally posted on: M.M.O.