Atmospheric prog/post-rock quintet SOM have released a video for their brand new single Center, which you can watch in full below.
The band, comprised of former members of Caspian, Constants and Junius, will release their debut album, The Shape Of Everything, which will be released through Pelagic Records on January 21.
"Center was one of the first songs we worked on as a band remotely during lockdown," says vocalist and guitarist Will Benoit. "The vocals were originally written for another project that ultimately got shelved, but I really liked what I had come up with and couldn’t just leave them on a hard drive to die. The chorus has this anthemic, almost pop hook, but if you read the lyrics and look under the hood, the song is much darker.
"I love songs that present themselves one way on first listen, but can take you somewhere completely different the more you pay attention. I felt like there was room on The Shape Of Everything to explore a slightly different tone like this one, but outside the vocals, I honestly had no vision for where it could be taken musically. So we tried an experiment: can the band write music around an existing vocal? Particularly in a time when we couldn’t all be in the same room anyway, it seemed like a good time to try out a different approach. I sent the isolated vocal tracks to everyone on top of a simple drum beat. Joel and Justin went back and forth developing the instrumental melodies and dynamics until we settled on this big dirging riff that really only changes to make the verses drive harder. Mike added lush, drippy guitars over the top and brought the whole thing to life.
"It took a lot of Zoom calls and sending files back and forth, which probably made this the most challenging song to finish on the album — both lyrically and musically — but it’s heavy, it’s pretty, and it accomplishes a lot of what I hope to accomplish with SOM all inside of a four-minute song."
SOM have previously released a video for Moment, Awake/Sedate and Animals.
Pre-order The Shape Of Everything.
You can buy the latest issue of Prog Magazine here.
