During a rocky comeback in 2023, Skrillex struggled to find a middle ground between his signature festival drops and new-gen emo rap across not one but two albums. So when the bass provocateur surprise-released FCK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3 two years later, the newfound ease in his mischief-making came as a relief. Released as a goodbye letter to his label of 15 years, Atlantic, FCK U SKRILLEX was tight but freewheeling, charging from one bite-sized sample into another over the quake of rumbling wub. It was effortlessly funny and exceedingly fun, the sound of Skrillex finally hitting his stride. The Los Angeles producer’s latest album, SOMA, opens with many of the previous record’s strengths: He displays a masterful grasp of what makes a killer rhythm tick, and his experimental instincts have rarely sounded sharper. But his cruise control sometimes sounds like autopilot.
Released last week without warning, the new album reflects Skrillex’s increasingly global well of inspirations. A poster boy for the “when you cool with everybody” meme, he has in recent years made music with his pal RHR in São Paulo, booked studio time in Uganda with singeli producer Jay Mitta, and worked with Dominican rapper Tokischa on her latest dembow-pop album, AMOR & DROGA. SOMA spills over with brostep, techno, jungle, Latin EDM, and a lot of Brazilian funk; it frequently reads as Skrillex’s “come to Brazil” album. Much of it is fantastic—“Pente Rala” barrels forward with giddy tamborzão rhythms, and on “Thistle,” his track with Blawan and Randomer, he samples “Queen of the Flows” MC Dricka over rollicking Miami bass. “Tranki” nimbly binds gnarly low end with the robotic, bubbly rapping of mysterious AD 93 outfit Tracey, which he interweaves with the voices of Argentina’s TAICHU and ANITA B QUEEN—a mix of contrasting accents and intonations as dynamic as Skrillex’s cut-up beats. But on “É o Bonde,” a collaboration with UK main-stager Chris Lake, feverish Portuguese-language rap is all but drowned out by bland tech-house.
Skrillex frontloads the album with some spectacular drops, which is obviously what we’re here for. The opening track, produced with Nitepunk, is a slingshot right into his customary world of blood-bursting adrenaline. The roaring bassline slithers beneath a wavering flute note before the floor gives out, and the song begins its fast and furious descent. Somewhere between hard techno and brostep, “Smoke” tears up everything in sight, as a small but mighty chipmunk vocal snarls, “Bring smoke to the—,” before dodging the sound of a million bullets. The topsy-turvy momentum of this first chunk fades quietly into the misty-eyed IDM of “Cheeni,” which stands out like a rose blooming from concrete. The ethereal vocal loops of Indian singer Naisha recall early-’10s progressive house that was once made for hugging your wide-eyed friends under festival lights. It’s a perfectly engineered taste of bliss.
Skrillex turns the dial down across the album’s middling back half. Strafed with hyperpop synths, “La Noche 2” attempts to reach for the stars, but ANITA B QUEEN’s clipped vocals (“To the left/To the right/La noche entera/Telenovela”) sound insistent rather than uplifting, a disconnect that might stem from the fact they were originally fit to Skrillex and Chris Lake’s blazing 2025 tech-house anthem “La Noche.” Although Young Miko’s swooning vocals sparkle on “Duro,” the production swerves unconvincingly from good-enough Latin EDM to a hard techno beat that feels like it was shoved into the mix at the last minute.
At the album’s end, Naisha returns on “Diwali,” where she shouts Wheeee! Wheeee! as if she were gliding down a playground slide. Over a percussive club rhythm, she doubles over in giggles, composes herself, then raps in Hindi before exploding in laughter again. It’s intentionally ridiculous, an off-the-cuff recording that might normally be excised—but Skrillex left it in, because of course he did. Even when he was signed to Atlantic, Skrillex never gave the impression of making music to please anyone but himself, his fellow musicians, and his fans. Now that Sonny’s a free agent, the most surprising thing about SOMA might be how much it sounds like the Skrillex we already know. There are no major course-changes here, no new revelations; you know a Skrillex beat as soon as you hear it. That’s a testament to the singularity of his style and the peerlessness of his skill. But if Skrillex has previously used his albums to mark significant points in his life and his career, SOMA feels more like a snapshot of an artist too busy forging ahead to worry about taking stock and reflecting. He remains dance music’s most restless experimenter, trying out new sounds until the right one sticks.
