Skrillex’s “Soma”: All 13 tracks ranked

Two of Soma’s lightest and most experimental moments are with frequent collaborator Naisha. Some of his vocals here sound like they’re raining down from heaven. As such, this track’s wind chimes and glowing synths work well together.

Soma ends with an upbeat “Diwali” that includes actual laughs and vocals from Naisha and Beam, the Jamaican-born American rapper who also featured on Skrill’s 2023 Quest for Fire’s “Hydrate.” “Week week week weeeeee!” is a little silly, but in the moment the track gets hard again very quickly, vibrating with the Jamaican swagger of the bass and BEAM.

“Scut 2,” which sits at the album’s midpoint, can be considered a palette cleanser, an experimental track made with lots of chopped percussion and three voices. One person frequently commands, “Sit!” and the other says, “It’s okay!” And a third mysteriously declares “read-only memory” at the end of the song.

Released in March, his collaboration with Young Miko, “Duro,” combines hyperpop and Latin influences into a heavy yet divine thrill ride.

Soma includes two collaborations with San Diego prodigies ISOxo, and it moves at the speed of light, leaning into gabba and hardcore, stirring up a sense of frenzy common to those genres. It’s not necessarily the variety of hard music we’ve come to know from Skrillex, but certainly these genres share DNA with his own work. Plus, he seems to be spending a lot of time in their native Europe these days, so it makes sense to hear him out.

A follow-up to the trio’s 2025 release “La Noche,” this Part 2 version features Anita B. Queen’s original vocals but otherwise maintains a connection to Part 1’s salacious production. Instead, we get something more experimental here, with intermittent synths glowing like a soundtrack, showing how previous generations of humans imagined the digital utopia of the future. It’s also a moment for this fast-paced, intense project to catch its breath before Soma’s final three songs.

It’s a cliché to say that songs rewire neural pathways, but damn if there’s not something working on another level in the buzzing, bee-swarming bass that dominates this collaboration with British bass producer Dismantle, Brazilian MC Dricka, and DJ 2K DO TAQUARIL. Combining muscular little guitar licks, hand percussion, other drums and raucous vocals with countless little production flourishes, this song requires good headphones to be heard properly.

Brazilian MC Dricka has a tone that cuts through production like a knife, and her flirtatious delivery is central to the intelligent production by Skrill, Randomer, and Blawan. The track quickly grows in size, from a hand percussion intro to the addition of a synthesizer that plays like Morse code, and ultimately “Thistle” shifts back and forth between ambient and more complex, dissonant percussion segments to great effect.

A collaboration with Nitepunk, the album opener first surfaced on the internet about a year ago under the name “Poosha/Crisis Theme” after Skrill performed it during their set at Ultra Miami 2025. This album version is essentially the same song that Skrillex fans have been talking about for the past 14 months, including the internet-famous “PAPI BOOMBA!” Samples — Rising waves of bass interspersed with drums and nerve-shaking drops serve as tone-setters for the 12 tracks that follow.

In the “I never saw this coming” category, Skrillex links up with Colombian star Fayed and the late great Italian producer Robert Miles for “Noche Without You,” which heavily samples Miles’ 1995 trance essential “Children.” The emotional weight of the original does a lot of the heavy lifting here, with the track gliding along the iconic piano chords of “Children’,” Skrillex rapping over his own pitched synths and reggaeton, and Feid delivering lyrics about the sadness of suddenly falling asleep alone. Love and the lack of love is an unusually obvious theme in the Skrillex catalogue, which makes it all the more remarkable.

Skrillex’s music often hits, but it rarely grooves. So the bassline of “É o Bonde” (the title translates to “It’s a Crew” in Brazilian slang) is great, bouncing along with plenty of crisp percussion, glitchy flourishes, and clever production design (the build-up between 3:10 and 3:27 is a sight to behold), clearly a Skrillex production as well. A collaboration between frequent collaborators Brazilian producer RHR and British titan Chris Lake (a Skrill mate since the pair collaborated on OWSLA’s first HOWSLA house compilation in 2017), the track is intimidating, fun, and an evolution of the entire body of work.

Smoke, released on May 1, is perhaps the best example of how Skrillex has evolved the dubstep that broke out in the early 2010s into a sound that maintains the spirit of size and aggression without ever leaning into nostalgia or old tricks. A collaboration with ISOxo, rapper Cristale, and London drill artist TeeZandos, ‘Smoke’ is menacing, crunchy, and zips along at a dizzying BPM, fusing Skrillex’s signature percussive punch with something that sounds like a good nail gun. And definitely this will go wild live.

A tag-team collaboration between Skrillex, rapper Tracy, Argentinian singer/rapper Taichu, and Korean-Argentine artist Anita B. Queen (who also appeared on Soma’s La Noche 2 and was a key player in 2025’s previous album La Noche), Trunchi finds Skrill throwing things against the kitchen sink, playing Tetris, trapping together, and UKG sprinting. Beats, rolling bass waves, handclaps, English and Portuguese vocals, and a variety of other elements are assembled into a complex but ultimately highly engaging track that drips with attitude above all else.