NEW NOISE
SOMNURI
Meet the Brooklyn trio breathing fresh and fiery life into sludge
WORDS: DOM LAWSON
“LEADING UP TO everything happening, we’d hit our stride. We had the record done and we were beginning to shop it around. It was winter, so we were coming out of that, feeling hopeful and hoping to tour and start playing. Then the hammer dropped.”
All good things come to those who wait, with any luck. Brooklyn-based trio Somnuri were looking forward to launching their second album, Nefarious Wave, before the summer of 2020. Once the pandemic poop had hit the fan, everything was put on hold as New York City shut down. Resigned to the fact that his band’s new record was going to gather dust for a while, Somnuri singer and guitarist Justin Sherrell focused on his day job.
“Everyone was forced to stay at home and sit on their hands and that was kinda counterintuitive to how we are,” he says. “Even when we don’t have a show we’re still writing new material and pushing to get that next show. But I didn’t really stop. I’m a bike messenger, so I was riding through the city, going through Times Square and seeing zero people. It was so strange, going through 40 blocks straight and seeing nobody except a couple of cops here and there. It was like something out of a movie, but way stranger to see it with your own eyes and experience it, like, ‘Holy shit, this is wild!’ you know?”