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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While there is no paradigm shift in Five the Hierophant’s sound on Apeiron, there is a clear expansion of vision. Building on the model of Through Aureate Void, the foundation remains one of dark, sprawling atmospheres, pregnant with ambience and pent-up threat (“Tower of Silence I”). The backbone of Five the Hierophant’s sound is built around bass, guitar, drums, and other percussion, apeing the likes of BRIQUEVILLE to create a rich, textured post-metal soundscapes (title track). However, where some bands rely on a vocalist to punctuate and enhance their compositions, Five the Hierophant have Jon’s sax. Crooning, whispering, screaming, the sax commands the sound stage (“Uroboros”), just as it is allowed to do in places on White Ward’s albums also. However, not content to rest on its laurels, the band is ever-expanding its horizons, broadening the already extensive array of tools at their disposal to now include horns, trumpets, gongs, bells, violins, skull shakers, and more.

Apeiron is a Greek word meaning that which is unlimited or infinite. What Five the Hierophant do so well is to capture that sense of both scale and organic fluidity. The overarching drone and ambient elements feel boundless and vast, amplified as they are by not only the horns and violins (“Moon over Ziggurat” and the title track), but also the liberal use of effects (end of “Tower of Silence I” and closer, “Tower of Silence II”). The sax, as well as the trumpet and other adornments, then light up the inky void, sometimes flowing like quicksilver (“Moon over Ziggurat”), sometimes more challenging, insistent, even angry (the opening title track), occasionally recalling the freeform lines of Neptunian Maximalism or an instrumental Pan.Thy.Monium. Even as we slip into looser, more chaotic soundscapes (middle portion of “Initiatory Sickness”), the whole of Apeiron retains an identity and cohesion that does great credit to Five the Hierophant.

A cursory listen to Apeiron might suggest that Five the Hierophant has delivered a freeform creation, light on tangible structures. However, while this may be true using only traditional metal as your reference point, there is a model or blueprint for the material that runs through the record. Each track opens in languid mood and, even where there are threatening or forbidding overtones, the sound is delicate, restrained slow-burn. It then gradually builds towards something more powerful and cathartic, punctuated by chaotic forays along the way. Perhaps this basic mold is responsible for the cohesive feel of Apeiron. However, it also means that, after a few listens, you start to lose the sense of indefinite exploration and feel instead like you are on a moist, well-trodden, slightly predictable path. That said, despite only being four minutes shorter than Through Aureate Void, the material on Apeiron feels significantly tighter and less meandering, with the sole (and unfortunate) exception of “Tower of Silence II.” This was, sadly, entirely the wrong five minutes with which to close the album. If only Five the Hierophant had stopped at the end of “Uroboros” (or, I suppose, swapped the two tracks), this could have been a far superior experience. As it is, Apeiron finishes on a disappointing siding, rather than a triumphant main line.

The production on Apeiron is a significant step up from previous albums. Rich and dynamic, it imbues Five the Hierophant’s sound with genuine power, while the master allows the legion of constituent elements sufficient breathing room. Indeed, it’s not just the production, but also the songwriting that represents a significant step up. Where Through Aureate Void meandered aimlessly, Apeiron feels like a journey, albeit with diversions and detours en route. If Five the Hierophant can now finetune their process to maintain the feel they’ve imbued Apeiron with, while slightly reducing the structural predictability, their next record will be truly masterful.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Agonia Records
Websites: five-the-hierophant.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/fivethehierophant
Releases Worldwide: October 18th, 2024

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Doom Jazz II continues Previte’s exploration of the boundary between notated and improvised music, as his work on drums gives a bright, energetic overtone to Saft’s woozy, drawn-out organ and synth work. Spread over three compositions—it feels disrespectful to call them tracks or songs—Swami Lateplate showcases three clear moods, with opener “The New Friend” an ominous, ponderous but strangely heavy number, moving into the spacious (and space-y) ambient vastness of “Everyone is Aware,” before “Deception” carries the listener offer in a completely different direction. A more chaotic and urgent, yet also melodic, piece, “Deception” builds in a more bluesy feel, which immediately put me in mind of French jazz legend Eddy Louiss’ Sang Mêlé (and “Blues for Klook” from that record, in particular).

As with the original Doom Jazz, it’s hard not to feel that Previte’s drumming is the star of the show here, despite it being, at least in metal terms, where we’re used to blasts and furious fills, relatively restrained and spare. Until the back end of “Deception” that is, where both members of Swami Lateplate cut loose, freeing themselves from the claustrophobic ambient doom mould they have carved, and briefly venturing into John Zorn’s Naked City-type territory. Previte’s beautifully crystalline work on cymbals and a few dancing keyboard progressions from Saft add a sense of light and shade to the otherwise dim and gloomy moods of Doom Jazz II. The deepest shade is cast by the rumbling, monochrome synths of the first two-thirds of “Everyone is Aware,” before Saft shifts his keyboard into 8-bit mode and, for a couple of minutes, it feels like he might have scored Sega’s original “Golden Axe.”

Swami Lateplate sound fantastic on Doom Jazz II, with the drums having clarity and brightness, especially in the toms, that you simply don’t hear in metal¹ and the balance in the mix between the two parts of the duo’s sound is struck perfectly. If I am to be critical of the compositions here, it has to be in a taste sense, rather than in any attempt to actually critique these guys. For my personal taste (and I am not a jazz aficionado, as this review is probably making painfully clear), a few of the transitions are slightly too stark and jarring, most notably the move from the earthquake-aftershocks-into-Golden-Axe-score of “Everyone is Aware.”

On its standout piece, “Deception,” Doom Jazz II’s blues-meets-improv-jazz holds me in the palm of its hand and “The New World” is intriguingly textured, with subtle flourishes that give its bleak ambience a strangely uplifting quality. Where Swami Lateplate slightly misfire is on “Everyone is Aware,” which does too little for the majority its 13-minute plus run, relying overly on ambient synth work, before suddenly doing too much in a rather nerve-jangling way. This is perhaps inherent in the style and reflects an acid jazz sensibility but I found it riled me in a slightly anxiety-inducing way. One of the dangers of reviewing non-metal and metal-adjacent albums (and one I will face again in a few weeks with the indomitable Cherd by my side) is attaching a score to something that sits outside the canon with which we normally deal. Doom Jazz II is, to my taste and sensibilities, far from perfect but it’s also complex, challenging and dares to draw influences from multiple sources to craft something unique.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Subsound Records
Website: swamilateplate.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: September 14th, 2023

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Opening salvo, “Suspended” features everything I love about the band. Its unhurried, minimalist style oozes emotion, with bare-bones doom riffs vibrating below the exquisite vocals of enormously talented frontwoman, Sara. Her delivery is sultry, raw and powerful, rising and falling with the throes of the song and elevating things to the nth degree. Slight nods to the Windhand formula are present in the sparse, stripped-down construction, but Messa is its own monster, as the abrupt detours into cabaret jazz plainly reveal. It shouldn’t seem so natural and seamless, but it is. “Dark Horse” is much more upbeat and 70s rock-oriented, with much in common with the latest from Jess and the Ancient Ones. I won’t get into who wears it better, but it’s another knockout full of seething energy and dynamic writing. I even detect vague hints of Sad Wings of Destiny era Judas Priest in its DNA along with more Mandylion mana.

“Pilgrim” is a huge set piece, clocking in at 9:26, and Messa make the most of it, dabbling in Middle Eastern and Flamenco influences for a dark, dreamy drift through time and space. Dirty stoner doom riffs surge to the fore eventually, plowing the road for Sara’s powerful vocal delivery, and the way she chants and beckons in the quiet spaces strongly recalls the eerie piece “Scorpio’s View” that Lalo Schifrin composed for the Dirty Harry soundtrack back in the 70s.¹ This is Messa operating at peak awesome, and it’s a stunning piece of music. Sadly, there are some lesser moments present on Close. The album’s longest cut “0=2” is definitely good but not great, and it’s the rare Messa track that feels way overlong. I do love that crazy saxophone freak out that arrives on the back-end, though. The inclusion of a strange 45-second blasting grindcore/war metal track dubbed “Leffotrak” feels very out of place and the way it arrives after a long sleepy march through “If You Want Her to Be Broken” is jarring, to say the least. Putting the album’s two longest tracks back-to-back was a questionable choice as well, and at an hour and 4 minutes, Close feels overlong despite the high quality of much of the material. Several songs could be trimmed by a minute or more as well. The production is generally fine but at times when things get busy it starts to sound muffled and clipped (especially on “Rubedo”).

As with the prior albums, the Messa sound is highly dependent on the wondrous vocals of Sara. She has a beautiful, versatile voice capable of bending and twisting to suit the various moods the music explores. She’s become one of my favorite vocalists across all genres and she once again shows herself to be both a titan and chameleon, effortlessly slipping from doom rock wailing to cabaret jazz crooning. Hell, I’d listen to her sing commercial jingles for used car dealerships and personal injury attorneys if that was all she was releasing. The band behind her is formidable as well. Guitarists Alberto and Mark Sade lay down tasty doom riffage as well as seriously impressive jams, and their creative genre experimentation makes Close pulse and crackle with raw energy. Mistyr lends an impressive kit performance, swinging from doom grinding to smooth jazz subtlety and all the weird spaces in between, showing how versatile he is. Add some well-placed saxophone and duduk lines courtesy of Giorgio Trombino and you have some spicy music to savor.

Close is another enigmatic offering from Messa that leaves the listener all sorts of treasures to uncover. It has truly transcendent moments that’ll give you goosebumps, and a few that feel much closer to the ground than usual. It ultimately falls just shy of brilliant, but it’s a captivating, enthralling experience nonetheless. This is a band you should always make a point to hear, and I suspect Close will grow on me like moss as the year unspools.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Svart
Websites: messaproject.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/messaproject
Releases Worldwide: March 11th, 2022

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Last Call at Nightowls is comprised of an Italian maestro, a Mexican saxophonist, and two Australian instrumentalists. On their first album, Last Call at Nightowls have put together forty minutes of dark and austere doom-jazz. In their own words, Ask the Dust is an “obscure journey in the middle of the night for men and women, […] between dream and nightmare chasing the omens of the black owl.” Terry and Maria’s dance with the tenor saxophone takes center stage on the album, permeating all seven tracks with sounds ranging from dark and melancholic (“Latigo”) to delicately romantic (“My Distant Dream”). Though vocals only appear on one track (“La Llorona”), Ask the Dust makes up for the lack of lyrical content with a wide array of strange synths and samples including spine-chilling snarls (“Humeda”), mysterious cyclical swooshing (“Ask the Dust”), and even bird chirps (“Latigo”).

The distant bubbling at the beginning of “My Distant Dream” gives off the aura of what I imagine lounging in an upscale underwater cocktail bar would sound like. On “La Llorona,” Spanish for “the weeping woman,” what sounds like an EBow emerges along with the introduction of the sole vocals on the album. I am a big proponent of how the EBow sounds, and I’ve played around with one a bit myself after being gifted one for Christmas. I was stoked to hear one on this album, but I grew disappointed as the part drew on, sloppy and aimless.

Overall, I feel the same sentiment towards Ask the Dust as a whole as I do towards the EBow part in “La Llorona.” Numerous other tracks on the album felt unintentionally directionless and lacking in structure as well, notably “Cold in my Veins” and the second half of “My Distant Dream.” Perhaps this is in part due to the difficulties of collaborating on music with band mates residing literally thousands of miles away.

Ask the Dust is intended to catch the eye of fans of Bohren & der Club of Gore, The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, all three of which are groups I’ve come across now on more than one occasion but have not yet had a chance to carefully listen to. Due to the geographic diversity of Last Call at Nightowls’s members, a broad set of sounds and influences can be heard on their first album. While their debut was overall a letdown for me, Ask the Dust just might be for you if you’re in search of some perplexing dark jazz.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Subsound Records
Website: facebook.com/last-call-at-nightowls
Releases Worldwide: March 6th, 2020

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