Somnuri Fights "Tooth & Nail" For Sludge Supremacy (Video Premiere)

Sludge can be a chaotic thing: the faster it gets, the more it seems to descend into complete anarchy, throwing caution to the winds and spiralling into chunky, corrosive madness. On their new album Nefarious Wave, New York progressive sludgers Somnuri rocket out of the city’s sewers with an obvious disregard for listener safety, throwing constant shifts into their feverish, ever-mutating material that toys with the boundaries of sludge overall. Their new music video for “Tooth & Nail,” a particularly furious entry from their upcoming album, takes notes from this instability and casts the band in a rotation of stark hues, wracked with blips and glitches throughout as if to further throw off the audience’s focus. You can watch the video below with our exclusive premiere:

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While Somnuri’s upcoming album spans a variety of moods, notably taking some time to embellish and experiment with the lusher and more meditative ends of their soundscape, “Tooth & Nail” is having none of that: this is pure radioactive anger crammed into a sub-three-minute offering. Double-time drumming, bludgeoning riffs: the hardcore punk side of sludge shines through here as the band vents their discontent.

Rather than narrating a twisting journey through the psyche as other tracks on Nefarious Wave do, “Tooth & Nail” simply accelerates to ramming speed. Ominous clean vocals do add some subtle layers, but pummeling guitar lines and a litany of screams hammer this one home, opting for constantly escalating chaos over patterned repetition.

Justin Sherrell (Vocals/Guitar) comments:

“Tooth & Nail” has always felt like an exorcising of the demons. It’s volatile and quick to the point. Lyrically, I was talking about my struggle maintaining healthy relationships, both personal friendships that felt impossible to continue and an intimate relationship that was falling apart at the time. It wasn’t so much a song about heartbreak or loss but more about clawing and hanging on to something potentially detrimental to both parties. It ultimately mirrors my own personal bout with addiction, emphasized by the hook, “till death do we part”. It’s definitely one of the more personal songs on Nefarious Wave, but I feel it has a universal theme that a lot of people can relate to and hopefully reach some catharsis of their own. We produced the video ourselves, it was directed and edited by Phil SanGiacomo (drums). The pacing had to match the energy of the song. We wanted it it to feel frantic, gritty and claustrophobic. Although it’s dark in nature, the colors are still vibrant and change with each segment, almost like a chaotic range of emotions passing over the viewer before they realize it’s over.

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Nefarious Wave releases June 4th, 2021 via Blues Funeral Recordings.