MESSA: Close (DOOM): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Each album, as rare as precious, of Messa sounds like the promise of a sonic and sensorial journey that doesn't fit in any box, doesn't belong to any well defined genre. "Close" is no exception to the rule but breaks with the curious aquatic theme that imbued "Belfry" (2016) and then "Feast For Water" (2018). As its title partly suggests, this third album draws its inspiration from the psychological consequences of the health crisis that has stopped the planet, altering social relations, breaking human bonds. From this anxious context, the Italians question the notion of social isolation, mental confinement, wonder about loneliness in our modern societies.

This theme commands a score that differs slightly from its predecessors. With the jazzy sonorities that make its identity and with which 'Suspended' and the intro of 'Orphalese' are adorned that haunt a twilight saxophone, Messa add to its palette oriental influences as surprising as bewitching. The use of traditional Arabic instruments, oud and duduk, spreads the breath of the desert ('Hollow'). The improbable meeting between leaded riffs sometimes at the borders of the drone and Arabian finery leads to compositions as dark as marvelous ('Pilgrim') which give to this offering all its salt.

In spite of its length, "Close" constantly fascinates, never bores thanks to the power of a writing shining of thousand gleams and to the not less powerful voice of Sara which carries all in its wake, as admirably illustrates it '0=2', journey of more than ten minutes which synthesizes the whole album by mixing rocky guitars, oriental tints, stratospheric vocals, demented saxophone, the whole gathered in a reptilian progression that perforates multiple crevices.

If musically, the short and noisy 'Leffotrak' may surprise, its chaotic blackness does not shock in a whole where any trace of cheerfulness if not of hope is spurned. This does not make less prevalent a form of beauty and delicacy ('Rubedo') which flows from these pieces furiously progressive in the soul, what testifies the strange 'If You Want Her To Be Taken', which oscillates from the sweetness to the dementia. And the further it goes, the more the album sinks into madness, a metaphor for isolation and loss of bearings.

"Close" continues the tortuous way that Messa digs since his beginnings, always singular, more staggered and audacious still but always as fascinating... - Official website

MESSA

CLOSE

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DOOM