Have you ever dived into an album expecting to enjoy it well enough for a quick fix, but then it just kept hitting you with great things? I’m sure we’ve all been there, and back in 2022, that’s where I was when a friend told me I should try out Italy’s Messa and their then-new album Close. I saw the ‘doom’ tag and expected pretty much that, but over an hour getting hit suddenly with jazz, blues, and Middle Eastern scales at unexpected moments, I knew I’d found one of my favorite albums for that year. Messa‘s self-styled ‘scarlet doom’ won me over easily, so of course I had to hop on The Spin as quick as I could. Surely, this would be even more expansive and diverse, right?
Well, as it happens, Messa has surprised me again. The Spin, compared to its predecessor, has shown a remarkable effort in metabolizing Messa‘s myriad experiments into a more focused and even more deeply moving effort. The old pieces that won me over are there of course, chiefly the regular injection of non-metal influences into their doomy stomp, a palpable sense of atmosphere, and the soaring singing of Sara (Bianchin, but credited mononymously). But in a move that almost feels calculated to target me personally, Messa has gone in a much more 80’s styled post-punk direction here, and it works so very well.
From the opening synth drone and Chameleons-esque effects-laden guitar of “Void Meridian”, Messa sets forth an enveloping dark atmosphere that maintains for pretty much the whole 42 minutes on offer. It’s a more sonically intimate album than I anticipated, but it makes the music stick to the mind even better and gets the vocals even more under your skin. Chosen as a leadoff single, “At Races” is a bit snappier as it winds through its doomy riffs and rousing chorus, while also featuring a shimmering quiet break in the middle. “Fire on the Roof” is even more dynamic, building tension through a synth pulse under a cool riff that erupts into stomping doom refrains, later building up intensity to a climactic ending that leaves one just slightly out of breath.
Deeper into the album, Messa lets their more experimental side have a bit more freedom in the mix. At first listen, I gave off an audible ‘oooh’ when “Reveal” kicked in with some swampy acoustic slide guitar before turning up the distortion and even introducing some furious blast beats, never abandoning the bluesy slide while locking into a doomy groove that carries the song along with swagger. Album closer “Thicker Blood” thrives on sheer sparse synthetic atmosphere before erupting in intensity in the latter half, even driving the vocals into harsh, harrowing wails before the album wraps up.
Outstanding as all of that is, it doesn’t even touch on the one-two of “Immolation” and “The Dress”, where I feel the album truly peaks. The former is just plain beautiful, the entire first half dedicated to piano and soulful singing while the back half features a blistering guitar solo (featuring another instance of slide guitar) and powerhouse singing that brings on goosebumps on every single listen. To a degree, I almost wished the song was just a piano ballad at first listen, but the emotion runs so high at the song’s end that it just couldn’t be any other way. Meanwhile, “The Dress” crafts an oppressively thick atmosphere in its sparse, empty verses, interrupted by leaden chorus riffs before a protracted dark jazzy breakdown featuring multiple fake out endings and guitar and trumpets trading off great solos. Somehow it evoked the gloomiest parts of Steely Dan‘s The Royal Scam, but through an alternate timeline that somehow involved Sade, post-punk, and doom metal, and I absolutely adore it. The jazz eventually erupts into charging metal underpinning another blazing guitar solo, before wrapping up in style.
There’s practically not a single moment across The Spin where I feel like Messa drops below their A-Game. Of course, the outstanding vocals (Sara may well be one of my favorite singers going at this point) and the guitar leads steal the show often, but the drums, bass, and myriad synths are always perfectly suited to their moment, be it taking center stage, providing a solid foundation, or remaining tastefully absent when necessary. The songwriting is impeccable, and the album’s production is clear but nowhere near sterile. It all works perfectly in service of the songs, and I would pick nary a flaw to point out in The Spin‘s runtime. Maybe some would argue that there a smidge too many guitar solos, or that the band’s non-metal extrapolations don’t land, but I’d respectfully disagree.
Somewhere along the way, it clicked to me that The Spin is pretty much a doomier analogue to In Solitude‘s Sister, an album I deeply love and have never found a worthy successor to in the past. Like that album, the specific blend of metal and post-punk going on here scratches an itch for me that little else does, and the fact that Messa pulls that off while also occasionally appealing to my love of blues and jazz is just priceless. The Spin always has something great going on, from its most furious moments to its most tranquil. Messa has delivered an outstanding album here, and it’s all but guaranteed to get a multitude more, uh…spins, from me.
