SOM - Let the Light In (2025) Hi-Res

Shoegaze, self-styled “doom pop” band SOM, have released their third record Let The Light In. The quartet have spent the last three years since their previous album working on their shoegaze meets post-rock sound to create something that’ s deemed their heaviest record, yet still being able to achieve moments of tranquillity, a ‘calm within the storm’ being one way to categorise it.

With SOM and Let The Light In, all interlinked with their previous full-length albums that explore themes relating to hitting rock bottom and trying to navigate the world around us, this newest release is meant to be a more inward examination of ourselves and others. Yet despite the record being more about personal reflection, it goes much further than that where each song is like a soundscape that captures different emotions and has you visualise different locations that accurately represent each feeling explored.

Opening with Don’t Look Back, we open with distorted ethereal noises before becoming clearer as the full band comes to create something melodic in this doom-esque atmosphere. Even without knowing the fact the record aims to combine both the calm and heaviness within the post-rock genre, it’s still immediately clear with, on the one hand, we have loud droning guitar and electronic distorted effects, a little similar to that used in BRING ME THE HORIZON’s Doomed, yet the more gentler otherworldly noises we hear offer a state of tranquillity. All tied together with some stunning psychedelic guitar riffs.

While each of the eight songs don’t represent one entirely unique emotion and experience every time, SOM have done something where they managed to make each song stand out exploring certain emotions from a different angle each time. For example, tracks like Give Blood and the title track seemingly focus on emotions relating to sadness and melancholic moods in a way that allows you to process them via droning guitar and low vocals, they’re heavy but not brutal. Yet at the same time, a song like Nightmares that again explores darker moods, does so in a way of creating a soundscape that can be akin to a gothic fantasy where these feelings are represented in a way of the twisted, yet beautiful, locations our characters visit.

That’s not to say that the album is entirely focused on the melancholic, there are truly stunning moments where we can experience something that sounds more hopeful, again from different angles. For one, Chemicals use of distorted ethereal sounds that, slowly shifting into something droning yet gentle with pop melodies. As the song progresses, you can’t help but feel uplifted, powerful with the softer beats and composition that might just give you the urge to abandon your current life and live one filled with wonder and mystery, yet it’s all nicely juxtaposed with darker guitar solos and vocals.

We then conclude with the aptly named The Light that, still exploring emotions related to hope, is a slow shoegaze song that serves as a calm moment from the heavier and, at times, darker sounds on this record. A perfect representation of the calm within the storm SOM have mentioned, serving to remind us that we’re all human are allowed to have moments of peace. A truly stunning record that helps to capture what it means to be human and that calm can exist even in more turbulent times.