As I entered the sold out Middle East upstairs in Cambridge, I bumped into bearded men clad in flannel and tattooed punk women with stylish pompadours, and the stench of PBR was thick. All these humans were packed in like sardines to see Boston’s own: Somos.
Somos is a new wave punk band that has gained much notoriety since the release of its debut album, “Temple of Plenty,” which was released in 2014 on Tiny Engine records.
Somos is not only Boston’s own, but UMass Boston’s own, as Somos’ lead singer/bassist, Michael Fiorentino, is a senior in American Studies.
While most students have some sort of extracurricular to stay busy while studying in college, Fiorentino and his band tirelessly write, record, and play music that emanates from a place of fiery passion for social justice that transcends the boundaries of punk, emo, and indie rock.
Only a few classes away from graduating from UMass Boston, Fiorentino recognizes the importance of his schoolwork.
“It’s actually kind of good to be in school while touring because it gives me something to really focus on throughout the day,” Fiorentino said, “so that not everything on tour is about the tour and I have something else to put my mental energy towards.”
Chatting with Fiorentino revealed an incredibly well-balanced man with an endearing twitch—something I also manage on a daily basis, the incessant urge to never stop fidgeting. Fiorentino has a well-sculpted and thoughtful mind for politics, which reflects in many of the band’s lyrics.
“I already am a political organizer, and I would be devoting more time to being politically active but the time restraints of touring make it hard,” Fiorentino said when asked what he would be doing if he weren’t in the band.
Fiorentino dedicated the band’s last song of the night, “Dead Wrong,” a fan favorite, to the Black Lives Matter movement—a movement he called “the most important and influential political movement of our generation.” Amid resounding cheers from the crowd, the band kicked into the song.
The show was sold out, which came as a surprise to Fiorentino—given that it is the band’s first headlining tour. Judging by the size of and rowdiness of the crowd, Somos’ tour alongside the enigmatic Petals and the Weezer-esque garage rockers The Superweaks is off to a great start.
That night at the Middle East, Somos was celebrating the release of its brand new album, “First Day Back,” which is a foray into dreamier, more atmospheric aspects of the band’s influences. Picture Bloc Party and the 1975 meets the Clash.
Fiorentino was aware that the shift in style on the new record would be somewhat polarizing, but in a way it was clear that this did not deter him or his bandmates whatsoever.
“A sophomore album is always tough,” Fiorentino said in reference to the old cliché of the sophomore slump, “but we figure that we need to put out what we want to put out because we can’t just cater to the ‘Temple’ purists.”
Fiorentino attributes the evolution of the band’s sound to dreamier influences from recent Alvvays and Turnover albums—which I genuinely believe would mark a brilliant transition for Somos if it decides to explore a more shoegaze/dreampop vibe on the band’s next album.
In “First Day Back,” Fiorentino experiments a lot with his vocal delivery, adding various forms of reverb and other effects to create a vastly different tonal experience than the straightforward delivery throughout “Temple of Plenty.”
Somos’ sound is unique within the scene explicitly because of Fiorentino’s deeper vocal register.
“A lot of people start singing when they’re younger, but I didn’t start singing until we started this band,” Fiorentino said, explaining his initial hesitations about being a vocalist, “so I’m sort of insecure about it, but I’m getting more comfortable with it.”
Both Somos records clock in at well under 30 minutes, an homage to Fiorentino’s punk roots, and also a stylistic choice that keeps the band willing to trim the fat and keep their songs succinct and unique in that regard.
“We just try to be as direct as possible with our music,” Fiorentino said.
In doing so, Somos creates a sound that is both accessible and digestible in a single listen because the listener is not being tasked with any sort of unrealistic expectation to ingest a massive 70 minute opus. Instead, the tunes are short, sweet, and full of dynamic elements that will satisfy most any listener.
Fiorentino is aware of the oversaturation of bands in the new wave of punk/indie rock/emo scene, but he keeps a level head and focuses on just writing new original music.
“We feel like, in this moment, we’re really a part of something,” Fiorentino said, noting that during the year they broke out—2014—many bands of their wave began to change the way audiences thought of how genres could interplay. Bands like Foxing, From Indian Lakes, Dikembe, Tiny Moving Parts, Have Mercy, The Hotelier, Prawn, and Pity Sex have all transcended the confines of standard genre definitions and have motivated numerous bands to rethink their approach to music production.
“So much music people listen to these days is more single-centric rather than album-centric,” Fiorentino said, explaining the band’s goal to release smaller pieces of music before another album, which makes sense since vinyl had made a massive resurgence into the realm of music distribution.
Somos returns to the New England area on March 26, where its tour ends at The Space in Hamden, Connecticut. So if you missed the band’s tour opener, make an effort to see the final show of the tour.