https://youtu.be/yXdFmsAKe0w?si=h0Ou8R66Dnodqdur
La meva #CançóDelDia per al diumenge 4 de maig és aquesta de les #Messa #Cittadella #DoomMetal 😶🌫️!
#messa
GardensTale Goes to Roadburn 2025
By GardensTale
The story of Easter, detailing the gruesome death and supernatural resurrection of a cult leader, is pretty fucking metal, all things considered. So it’s fitting that the cream of the crop among underground heavy music festivals, Roadburn, coincides with the religious holiday this year. Not that it makes much difference to me, my partner, or the slew of friends we drag across the Tilburg city centre to enjoy some of the heaviest, strangest, and most envelope-pushing music that music has to offer. We’d murder our feet and livers for this fest any time of the year.
For the last few editions, Roadburn has spread its venues over several locations within a few hundred-meter radius. The 013 is the main venue, hosting the large Main stage with its signature staircase (a brilliant way to rest your feet while watching a show!) and the smaller NEXT. A 5-10 minute walk away, depending on your state of mind and soundness of body, is the old industrial hall known as Koepelhal, split for the occasion into the larger Terminal and smaller Engine Room. Attached is the diminutive Hall of Fame, where the smallest artists get to do their thing, with the ever-popular skate park next door regularly hosting secret shows, which are often announced only a few hours beforehand. Finally, the local jazz club Paradox is the place to be for the more unconventional material, which is saying something in this place.
What follows is a cleaned-up live thread I tapped out in hasty bursts between and during sets, my word-vomit witnessed in real time by my colleagues who gave frequent and often unhelpful commentary. Where applicable, I saw fit to include their remarks and any response I had to their tomfoolery. I can not promise this will result in a sane article, but I hope it can sketch a glimpse of what the greatest festival in the world is like.
Day 1 (Thursday, 17th of April)
2:51 PM — As usual, the larger sizes of the merch sell out lightning fast, and so I walk away with a single patch and disappointment. Let’s hope Glassing can obliterate the letdown.
Cherd of Doom: Surely they restock merch through the festival?
HAHAHA no
Everyone knows merch goes fast so everyone goes to merch first so merch goes fast
And they always underproduce the large sizes
sentynel: You’d think if the merch consistently sold out really quickly they might print more next time
3:12 PM — Yep, Glassing is fucking killing it. Pushing an almost Spartan setup to its limit. The drummer is just bonkers!
4:11 PM — Listening to Oranssi Pazuzu outside the main stage because we could no longer get inside. It sounds impressively oppressive. Wish we could have seen more of it, but I would not have wanted to miss Glassing. Choices choices.
4:24 PM — The electronics and psychedelics of Oranssi Pazuzu are really cool. I should have paid more attention to this band.
4:48 PM — Slowing things down a bit with Toby Driver’s new age project Alora Crucible. It’s pretty enough, but 10 minutes in, I am still waiting for it to develop into something more than a yoga class background music jam.
5:17 PM — It did not.
5:31 PM — Listened most of Alora Crucible from the lounge where they pipe down the music from that stage. Very relaxing, better way to experience it than the venue!
5:33 PM — Then sludge legends Kylesa reformed on the main stage. No second drummer sadly, but what a treat to see this band live again! Last time was at Graspop in 2011.
6:44 PM — Waiting for Faetooth to start. Their first European gig!
Dolphin Whisperer: love Faetooth, they got a new album on the horizon I believe
7:10 PM — Faetooth is decent but not amazing, the vocals are a bit one-note at least on stage. Some nice riffs and I wouldn’t have minded finishing the gig but my feet are too dead to settle for decent right now. At least we can still listen to them for a bit outside the venue.
9:20 PM — After a good big meal we went to the main stage for envy.
And it’s already entrancing just a few minutes in.
9:31 PM — I am in love, this is the greatest thing I discovered today. The intense and concentrated emotion divided between melancholic post-rock and colossal outbursts of post-metal-hardcore is divine.
This is their 2003 album, tomorrow they will play a modern era set.
Dolphin Whisperer: envy good
well WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME
Cherd of Doom: See, bands playing multiple themed sets is exactly why I’d love to go to Roadburn. The Inter Arma sets last year for instance
10:29 PM — Envy was my favorite show of the day easily. So intense, so emotional.
10:39 PM — Black Curse is apparently overrun, so instead we decided to wait for Concrete Winds. Dame Area was still playing in that venue, so we thought we’d check it out. We walked in and walked back out like Grandpa Simpson.
Dolphin Whisperer: CONCRETE WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINDS
11:30 PM — Concrete Winds sounds good for dense death metal but I am honestly too tired for death metal this dense.
12:42 AM — But I stuck it out! It was intense, but pretty cool. Sadly my phone died halfway through.
Day 2 (Friday, 18th of April)
12:49 PM — Heading in for the first performance on the bill today, a collab of Throwing Bricks and Ontaard. They’ve collaborated successfully before on record, but this is a new commissioned piece.
1:19 PM — It’s fucking awesome! 8 musicians on stage, massive sound, but the balance is great and it’s emotionally devastating.
The sound quality is also much better than most Engine Room performances.
Between the two bands you also have a lot of variety. Male and female vocals, synths, violin, two drummers. Gorgeous.
1:49 PM — I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of ‘beautiful serene passage, suddenly interrupted by the most devastating wall of noise.’
2:54 PM — Midwife was very pretty, very demure, and very much not what I was looking for right now. Sort of a shoegaze, dreampop, slowcore thing that feels more appropriate for a summer sunset than a dark crowded hall and foot pain. Will check again later!
3:20 PM — Now for one of my most anticipated shows of the festival: Messa playing their new album The Spin in full!
3:41 PM — Their stage presence is a bit static, but the album and execution thereof are so good it’s easy to forgive.
Dolphin Whisperer: They don’t typically have a big stage presence from what I gather. They didn’t when I saw em in a small club
5:11 PM — After Messa we intended to see CHVE, the solo project of Colin [van Eeckhout] from Amenra. The line was pretty long, so we declined to join it. But it was all speed 0 soundscapes and were even boring when listening from the lounge.
Dolphin Whisperer: why go fast when you can go sloooooooooooooooooooooow
5:13 PM — But now it’s time for round 2 of envy! Loved em so much yesterday, we wanted seconds. Today is the modern set, including all of Eunoia, their 2024 album.
6:36 PM — Envy was once again beautiful and crushing.
6:39 PM — After envy we went to queue for 40 Watt Sun. Patrick Walker is doing a solo show in Paradox, the jazz club, and it’s bound to be jam-packed. Thankfully we got in! Now having another beer and waiting for the man to make us weep.
7:02 PM — Walker surveying the crowd: “That does not look comfortable.”
7:34 PM — Between songs this man is the funniest fucker alive, then he starts playing again and instantly it’s misty eyes and goosebumps. What a character, what a musician.
8:52 PM — Sometimes you gotta stop and smell the Korean fried chicken.
9:22 PM — Now waiting for Genital Shame.
10:20 PM — Genital Shame was decent, but couldn’t hold our attention. Also I was much too close to the speakers and the kick drums were overpowering the guitars. Caught a friend heading out and decided to follow her to Gnod Drop Out with White Hills.
11:04 PM — Gnod was very particular music for a very particular audience under a particularly large amount of drugs. Endlessly spooling 70’s space rock psychedelics. We didn’t stay long. Instead we opted for Thou, playing Umbilical on the main stage.
Dolphin Whisperer: THOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU
11:19 PM
I always kind of skirted around Thou, but they put on a good show. Unforgivingly harsh and unstoppably heavy, with the biggest riffs I’ve heard today. I don’t feel the amount of heart I got from the best performances today, but it’s a fun and filthy way to end the day.
Day 3 (Saturday, 19th of April)
1:54 PM — Scarfed down a fresh stroopwafel, brought my ebook for breaks and waits, and shuffled into the Terminal for Dødheimsgard!
They’re playing Black Medium Current front to back.
2:05 PM — It’s more of a sardine pressure vat than a sardine can in here.
2:11 PM — But the show is great! The big hall works for the expansive spacy black metal and the band is performing with fire
2:38 PM — We escaped the crowd to join a different one and check out Haatdrager, a project from students at the Metal Factory in Eindhoven. Claustrophobic electro-laden sludge. It’s fucking awesome!
2:44 PM — The vocalist is a very talented young woman. Throat ripping screams, but she also focuses on flow and rhythm in a more hip-hop fashion which gives the music an urban fusion flair akin to Backxwash and dälek.
Dolphin Whisperer: Like and subscribe
3:42 PM — We left for ice cream, then headed back to catch the off-kilter hardcore punk of Gillian Carter.
3:49 PM — Instrumentation is cool, sharp riffs with unexpected turns and skronks. Vocals are very one-note though. Will try to get into Grey Aura instead.
3:52 PM — Samantha compared the vocals [of Gillian Carter] to Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit sinking into the Dip and it is 100% accurate.
4:29 PM — Grey Aura was worse though. Embarrassing vocals honestly. Yelling like he wanted the kids to get off his lawn.
Tyme: Boooo! Too bad. I dig Grey Aura.
Dolphin Whisperer: That’s really sad to hear :(
5:09 PM — We grabbed a drink and intended to get in line for Uniform. And so we did, but the Terminal filled to capacity before we got there. Not willing to face another sardine pressure vat, we went with plan B: a collaboration between Sumac and Moor Mother. Now waiting for that while giving our feet a rest on the main stage steps.
Tyme: Sumac?? Hmmmmmm. Interesting
Dolphin Whisperer: Sumac + Moor Mother sounds the kinda collab that is so high art it may be impossible to sniff it. Hope it’s enjoyable
You’re not far off. It doesn’t feel like they managed to glue freeform activist hiphop and sludge doom together cohesively. More like switching between the Moor Mother bits with heavy guitars, then Sumac bits where they play actual riffs.
6:23 PM — We left to see Coilguns instead. That turned out to be the right decision. Frantic hardcore punk with ketamine energy and acidic left field swerves; it’s not always sane but it’s highly entertaining!
6:25 PM — The vocalist is especially all over the place, pulling himself across the stage by the afro and using 5 different styles and inflections in the same song
6:29 PM — Also met one of our Discord users, inkster.
Dolphin Whisperer: inky is very social + nice
She was! We left before the end because it was a long set and our feet are so fucked, but Sammy and I had fun watching Coilguns with her for a bit
8:52 PM — Caught a couple songs from Denisa after dinner. A sort of raw post-punk meets Emma Ruth Rundle from Indonesia. Not extraordinary, but solid, sung and played with heart.
9:38 PM — Also a few songs from Doodseskader’s set. First saw them opening for Alcest, and their stark, raw nu-sludge, with intense visuals synced to the music, hasn’t lost its potency.
9:43 PM — Altın Gün is a big change of pace, though. They play a mixture of psychedelic rock and Turkish traditional music. It’s very danceable, but for me it lacks a little oomph, a bit of grit.
11:21 PM — Bidding the day goodnight with Chat Pile. They play their music well, but I was hoping that’d be enough to make me enjoy their music more, and it isn’t. Still, it’s an effective, brusque brand of spasmodic aggression. The frontman pacing back and forth barefoot in shorts like he’s in the Ministry of Funny Walks is quite the choice.
11:38 PM — Okay, “Why” was a hoot, fair is fair
Tyme: Still sounds like you’re having a blast tho!
I gotta admit it, that was a pretty fucking fun show yeah
Day 4 (Sunday, April 20th)
10:04 AM — Mild hangover. Went to the local metal dive bar last night with some of our festival pals. Partied til 3:30 am. I am getting too old for this shit. Except fuck that, it was a ton of fun and I’ll fucking do it again!
2:01 PM — Dragged my husk to the Terminal to see Vuur & Zijde play Boezem, which I gave a very positive review a few months ago. Curious to see how it plays on stage!
2:53 PM — Though the music was performed perfectly well, a giant industrial hall is probably not the ideal venue for Vuur & Zijde. I think they’d do better in a more intimate setting. But some minor sound issues aside, it was a pretty good show overall.
2:56 PM — Halfway through we decided to move to the smaller Hall of Fame to check out Bacht’n de Vulle Moane, a band that’s only a year old and supposedly plays some intense black metal festuring analog electronics.
3:05 PM — “Good evening Roadburn!” Dude it’s 3 pm.
3:14 PM — This sounds less like black metal with electronics and more like someone yelling over muddy hardstyle.
3:26 PM — It didn’t annoy me, but it did bore me. I didn’t come here for techno.
Dolphin Whisperer: Every time is the evening if you’re playing black metal
That’s great, maybe they should have tried that instead of playing techno haha
4:01 PM — Just watched an animated short movie called The Hunter made by Costin Chioreanu. Quite cool, though the plot was lost on me. Pretty imagery though!
4:32 PM — Frente Abierto plays flamenco, but a dark and heavy variation thereof. Interesting, but not really to my tastes.
6:11 PM — Michael Gira’s set with Kristof Hahn (both from Swans) was an exercise in patience. Slow droning soundscapes, eventually joined by slow droning vocals. At some point I could no longer stand the slow droning.
6:13 PM — Turns out Sumac has quite a lot of slow droning soundscapes as well. I don’t need to like everything Roadburn has to offer, but gee golly, I hope I’ll enjoy at least one thing more than Vuur & Zijde today.
7:37 PM — With a belly full of noodles we plowed on back to the Terminal to catch a slice of Big|Brave. More slow droning soundscapes, but the vocals help give it a slightly better sense of progression. Still, when the song devolves into crash cymbal taps and nothing else for a few minutes, I do get a bit restless.
7:41 PM — When the buildup is more noticeable the music is much more enjoyable, thankfully, and the vocals are powerful.
7:48 PM — All in all a good performance that requires a bit more patience than my exhaustion has left me with.
9:03 PM — Bo Ningen, heavy psych rock from Japan, is a lot of fun and the first thing with this much energy today. Quite diverse, exploring different moods and textures.
9:25 PM — They manage both heartfelt space-outs and extended high-octane jams. Exciting show and excellent musicians!
9:35 PM — “This will be our last song!”
They still had 15 minutes.
They still went over time.
10:58 PM — Closing out the festival for us is Haunted Plasma. The glitzy darkwave with an edge reminds me of that scene in Blade with the vampire nightclub. The woman on the mic has a sweet spectral presence. A bit one-note, but otherwise very enjoyable and a worthy festival finale.
Even though the line-up was a bit frontloaded this year, it still resulted in some of the most hardest-hitting and affecting live music I’ve yet experienced, even from bands I’d never heard of in the first place. Both envy shows and the Throwing Bricks collaboration with Ontaard were the stuff of legends, and this kind of discovery is what makes Roadburn such a joy to return to, year after year. And it’s all the sweeter having a great group of friends to experience it with, as my partner and I attended few shows without at least one other friend by our side. So dear reader… same time next year?
#40WattSun #Alcest #AloraCrucible #AltınGün #Amenra #BachtNDeVulleMoane #Backxwash #BigBrave #BlogPost #BlogPosts #BoNingen #ChatPile #CHVE #Coilguns #ConcreteWinds #Dälek #DameArea #Denisa #Dödheimsgard #Doodseskader #EmmaRuthRundle #Envy #Faetooth #FrenteAbierto #GenitalShame #GillianCarter #Glassing #Gnod #GreyAura #Haatdrager #HauntedPlasma #InterArma #Kylesa #Messa #Midwife #MoorMother #Ontaard #OranssiPazuzu #Sumac #Swans #Thou #ThrowingBricks #Uniform #VuurZijde #WhiteHills
Conan – Violence Dimension Review
By Alekhines Gun
Alongside money, sex, and the number 42, “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women” remains the peak answer to the meaning of life. Such melodic woe, such malodorous despair is the anthem to many a succulent succumbing of the Other, the Lesser Than, and the Detested. Conan traffic in an unusually encouraging slab of doom; namely, rather than horror descending upon the listener, you are that horror, and woe betide all who come to oppose you and your curiously hawk-shaped weapons. Here to be the accompaniment to your next assault on all those whose name you scorn and singing the songs of your own personal terrorization of those beneath your notice, sixth LP Violence Dimension has arrived. Does it name a frame of mind? A place you exile your conquests? The wing of the dungeon the n00bs are kept in? Grab your noblest of steeds and polish your battle axe, we have a pillaging to get to.
While most subgenres survive based on the might of the RHIFF, doom survives as much on its tone as its composition. Violence Dimension offers that tone in spades, with a plod like the flinging of pure tar splatter into your eardrums and a woofer rattle thicker than a wooly mammoths mating thrusts. From the kickoff rumblings of “Frozen Edges of the Wound” to the opening quake of terror lifting the curtain on “Foeman’s Flesh”, Conan offer up a sound which sidesteps fuzzed out stoner tropes into something much more akin to banging impossibly large rocks together. The grindy, sub-one-minute “Warpsword” blasts with a sandpaper buzz to reduce your saber teeth to stumps in seconds. The vocals of Jon Davis echo across the neighboring mountain, bringing tidings of destruction meshed with rarely seen motivational lyrical refrains (“Total Bicep”) while riding grooves stacked atop grooves across the whole package.
Subjugating the Tyrannosaurus tone is one spear-chucking assault after another. “Desolation Hexx” comes out swinging an Ankylosaurus tail straight for the feeble brain cavity, only to keep wailing on you with extreme prejudice as drummer Johnny King switches his flows to take the repetition from merely brutal to prehistoric savagery. “Total Hex” rides riffs with balls bigger than Messa’s Belfry and closes out on a better Electric Wizard riff-and-fuzz-solo than that outfit has penned in several albums. Even the mostly instrumental title track manages to channel the sinister atmospheres of modern Bongripper into Conan’s own sense of identity and flow, with bass solos, ever-shifting drum fills, and one relentless chug after another violating the listener.
So with so much weighty blood and Brontosaurus poo being flung about, what’s the catch? Violence Dimension suffers excessively from “The Windhand paradox”. Every single song here features top-shelf, grade A, Triceratops steak medium rare riffage ready to create new caves to dwell in with their own might; these riffs are promptly run right past the stone age and well into the modern age, into regrettable monotony. Other than the possible exception of the title track (which itself starts to run out of steam the last couple of minutes), many of the songs don’t deserve the length they’re given. The shorter songs are absolute volcano cratering ragers, and every long song has many a melody of menace to welcome your enemies’ wives into your harem. But those moments don’t deserve to be repeated as often as they do, and what would make for a delightful 4 minute song gets pushed into a nine-to-ten-minute song with gleeful abandon. Closer “Ocean of Boiling Skin” is the worst offender, ending on a glorious clubbing of a groove and then ooga-booga’ing for a solid five extra minutes, until all the initial impact is long forgotten.
This is maddening because when Violence Dimension is on, it is on. Make no mistake, this is still a quality album and doom aficionados will find much to love here, but I’m rooting for more. Conan write unique, relatively uplifting, energetic doom, and I want more of it. I also want them to write riffs worthy of the song lengths they dole out, or commit to an album of shorter songs just to see what happens. For the moment, make sure your axes are sharpened and find your favorite loincloth, for Violence Dimension is here to ensure you have a fitting soundtrack to send your enemies to the great beyond in style.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 303 kbps mp3
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds Records
Websites: Album Bandcamp | Official Facebook Page
Releases Worldwide: April 25th, 2025
#2025 #30 #Apr25 #Bongripper #Conan #DoomMetal #ElectricWizard #HeavyPsychSoundsRecords #Messa #Review #Reviews #UKMetal #violenceDimension #Windhand
New Artist announced for Hellfest Open Air 2025: 🔥 Messa 🔥
🎶 Listen to the current LineUp on YouTube and Spotify: https://fyrefestivals.co
🎟️ Get your Tickets now: https://prf.hn/l/EJnYMdO
#Hellfest_Open_Air_2025 #Messa #fyre_festivals #livemusic #youtube #spotify #music #musicfestivals #playlist #tickets #announcement
Messa is a band you might be interested in if you like female-fronted doomy, bluesy, psychedelic, jazzy, progressive rock/metal. They haven't put out an album that is anything less than fantastic. They just released their 4th studio album called "The Spin" and damn if it ain't another banger. The vocals are powerful and haunting with amazing range from soft to soaring and even moments of grit when things get heavy.
Messa: Italian Doom Metallers Present “Fire on the Roof” Video
#TheSpin
#MetalBladeRecords 2025
La calidad y la riqueza musical de siempre, un gran placer volver a escucharlos.
https://messa.bandcamp.com/album/the-spin
#música #nuevamúsica #nuevodisco #metal #rock #darkambient #doommetal #drones #stoner #Italia
@lpl My pick for #Saturdoom this week is the new album by Italian doomers #Messa, specifically the track The Dress. It has a full-on jazz middle section.
https://www.last.fm/music/Messa/The+Spin/The+Dress
MESSA (Itàlia) presenta nou àlbum: "The Spin" #Messa #DoomMetal #Rock #Abril2025 #Itàlia #NouÀlbum #Metall #Metal #MúsicaMetal #MetalMusic
My relation to #DoomMetal is somewhat dorky. I always thought it's not my cup of tea. Then #Messa crossed my way. They opened a window, and obviously there is a lot to discover out there.
New album out today.
Messa – The Spin
https://album.link/d/682239451
Happy #Messa release day! I pre-purchased this digitally on #Bandcamp so I have some hi-res downloads. I will likely go get the #CD from my local #RecordStore this weekend. (I have all their other albums on CD, but I am tempted to get the vinyl...)
Le nouvel album de la pépite italienne de "Scarlet Doom" Messa sort demain !
Le moment idéal pour faire une petite rétrospective de leur carrière !
Un groupe qui ne laisse pas indifférent !
Metal Blade Video 🤘 New Messa video coming Monday the 14th! #messa #blackmetal #postmetal #metalblade #metal http://dlvr.it/TK4hwT LinkInBio for More 🤘 #MetalBladeRecords #HeavyMetal #Metal
Unkomfortabel: Wenn man mehrere #Metal #Music #CD bei #NuclearBlast bestellt und #Preorder dabei sind: Die gesamte Lieferung erfolgt erst, wenn die letzte Scheibe veröffentlicht ist.
Meine letzte Bestellung von #Messa, #Mantar, #Behemoth und ein schickes #CattleDecapitation Shirt werden somit wohl nicht vor 09. Mai auf den Weg gehen 🥲
Naja, #Vorfreude ist ja auch schön 😉
By Carcharodon
We all slow down in our old age. Our own Steel Druhm is no exception. As he closes in on his third millennium, he finds himself overwhelmed more and more often.1 And so verily it came to pass that, to help out our tiring patriarch, Dolph and I agreed to double team his beloved Italian psych-doom weirdos, Messa.2 To be fair, this is no hardship. All three of Messa’s albums to date have been absolutely killer, from the drone-doom of debut Belfry (2016), through personal fav, the post-bluesy Feast for Water (2018) to progressive opus Close (2022). To say the band is enigmatic would be something of an understatement. The quartet, which has held together without any line-up changes for over a decade, seamlessly knit together a dizzying array of styles, modulating the focus on each release. Where will the dial land on fourth outing, The Spin?
If you’re looking to place The Spin in Messa’s discography, it’s probably closest in tone to Feast for Water. However, it’s a smoother experience. Rather like using a velvetiser to make your hot chocolate. It’s still hot chocolate. But it’s thicker, richer, and, well, velvet-ier. The Spin has been velvetised in two key ways. First, Sara’s smouldering, siren-like vocals have hit a whole new level, with the power on her sustains (“Fire on the Roof” and “Void Meridian,” in particular) imbuing The Spin with such a sense of power. Secondly, guitarist Alberto has leant harder into the progressive doom of Vanishing Kids, paired with the languid blues of his solo debut (Little Albert’s Swamp King), all buried in a guitar tone that Pink Floyd would be delighted by (“Reveal” and the gorgeous back end of “Immolation”). Where Feast had a slightly roughened, old-school Trouble or Pentagram edge to its haunting, crooning vibe, Messa are now operating in bigger, more expansive—and, frankly, more expensive-sounding—territories, recalling the likes of recent Green Lung (“At Races”) and Beth Hart (“Fire on the Roof” and “Immolation”).
And yet, Messa are still unmistakably Messa. From the yawing electronica that opens The Spin on “Void Meridian,” through The Gathering-meets-psychedelic-lounge-jazz of “The Dress” to the oppressive, brooding heaviness of closer “Thicker Blood,” the constantly shifting sonic palette draws on soundscapes that are familiar from each record in the band’s back catalogue. At the same time, The Spin is more anthemic than previous albums, with almost-nailed-on song o’ the year “Fire on the Roof” leading the way, its huge, trad doom chorus a thing of beauty, while the smoky, mesmerising verses find Sara almost chanting. In fact, “Fire…” is the start of a three-track run that, for me, is pretty well the best material Messa has written, as it leads into the fragile keys and bluesy, cathartic build of “Immolation” before “The Dress” hits. It is this that sets The Spin slightly apart from previous Messa albums, which have an organic flow to them, where this latest offering feels slightly more like a collection of songs.
While The Spin does feel less like a single, flowing composition than previous Messa records, it doesn’t lack cohesion, and the massive, standout highs offer plenty of compensation for that slight loss in flow. This may be explained by the fact that, unlike Close, the band chose to record this album separately, across several locations and periods, with (apparently) a lot of rearrangement of the material to get to the finished record. Messa also focused on simplifying and stripping back the song structures, which makes them more digestible. Although there are no weak songs on The Spin, opener “Void Meridian” lacks bite and never quite hits its stride, while penultimate cut “Reveal” feels like it belongs on an earlier Messa album, particularly in its chugging middle passage. I touched above on the beautiful guitar tone that Alberto and Mark Sade have found, so thick and meaty you can practically bite into it. Apparently, the band focused on using as much original 80s equipment as possible, which could have something to do with it.
At this point, it’s becoming apparent that Messa basically can’t miss. Whatever they turn their hand to, they manage to retain their identity, while writing diverse, interesting and, most importantly, absolutely banging albums. The Spin is no exception, from the bright, propulsive energy of “At Races” to the stark beauty of “Immolation,” Messa have done it again. At a tight 43 minutes, this album races by and, when it finishes, the only reason I don’t simply start it again is that I usually want to listen to “Fire on the Roof” a couple of times first. Less challenging and more immediate than previous records, but no less beautiful for it, The Spin perhaps shows the influence of bigger label Metal Blade on the band. I hope it earns them some deserved dollar bills.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: messa.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/MESSAproject
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025
Dolphin Whisperer
My brother-in-law loves metal, and I don’t think he’d be offended if I were also to say that he’s not particularly invested in finding new metal to listen to in the modern scene. However, on one ride in the car, I had Messa’s 2022 opus Close on at a moderate volume, prompting him to investigate what exactly was enchanting his ears. After that outing, he and my sister returned to their home, another five-plus hour drive, and she sent me a text saying that they binged Messa’s discog a couple times on the way back; he was in love. You see, despite the quirks that give Messa their mystical air, the crafty Italians possess the secret to all great rock music: volume-scaling power, a unique and soaring vocal presence, and big, fat hooks. The Spin, of course, is no exception.
In that regard, Messa follows their own lineage by never delivering the same album twice. The journey from post/drone atmospherics of Belfry to the heavier occult/doom worn Feast for Water to the MENA jazz-loaded snake charming Close, each entry in their catalog serves as an ode to their inherent tendency to experiment while holding true to a base of doom weight and rock attitude. Vocalist Sara Bianchin has transformed alongside Messa’s journey too, with her earliest performances reflecting the youth of her experience in rawer mic reflections. But The Spin leans on sounds from the ’80s, and, in turn, Bianchin’s now studied attack runs recklessly through swirling and swelling layers of echo and shrill serenade. Elsewhere, chorus pedal abuse, gothy reverb, and low-end synth propulsions mark The Spin’s throwback dance in the Messa stride—Disintegration-echoing bass leads (“Void Meridian,” “At Races”) crashing against Tears for Fears brooding throbs (“The Dress,” “Thicker Blood”) running through call-and-response guitar lead explosions (every. song.). It’s easy to fall prey to the sense of nostalgia that such sounds stimulate.
However, in a sense of reverence for the past, not just a wistful longing, The Spin weaves its own home in familiar textures. Messa finds a comfort in dreamy textures indebted to foundational post-punk works—those of The Sound or Joy Division—while still injecting a metallic edge of heavyweight chord drives and aggressive rhythms (“Fire on the Roof,” “Thicker Blood”). Doom anchors the drama, as always, in slow builds and syllable stretches that crawl and lurch against Messa’s chosen palette of Roland-modulated simmers and proto-shoegaze dissonance (“Void Meridian,” “The Dress”). And, of course, Messa lives life in the fast lane switching and melding identities on a dime, with late album cut “Reveal” pairing a heavy blues twang, frantic bursts of blast beats, and Bianchin’s wailing narrative for an anachronistic detour that both upends and upholds The Spin’s playful historical lens.
As Messa’s shortest album to date, The Spin’s seven cuts go down smooth but lacking in the kind of wholeness that other works have held. On one hand, it’s easy to work in The Spin to whatever length of time allows—a quick hit or two of your favorites as you dress for the day ahead, a longer commute as the sun moves from straight in the eyes to waving from the side, a jog around the neighborhood with canine companions. Movement, or rather transience, sits at the core of Messa’s themes here after all: the chase for meaning in a strained world (“Void Meridian”), the weight of choice that can’t decide a push or pull (“Immolation”), and accepting what lurks around the corner (“Thicker Blood”). And so The Spin demands more as an encapsulation of wandering, but it’s a human quest that’s easy to indulge as you see fit.
Neither a slow-burn nor a peel out, The Spin saunters at a breathing, bustling pace that manages to hustle ahead of a growing movement gazey and hazey doom wielders. I, too find solace in genre cousins like the jazzy and equally textured Moths or the pleading missions of Slumbering Sun, but Messa continues to find ways to wield weaponized guitar heroism, fat-bottomed tones, and sultry synthesis in a way that feels true to their growing discography while reaching to new fans and new sounds. Music this powerful stands ready to inspire binge listening, tone envy, and, with any luck, another generation hopelessly addicted to six strings screaming at unadvisable volumes.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
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