A perfect five outta five. I believe that if that kind of Hosanna’s meant to be taken seriously, then grave consideration must be applied before it’s awarded. I mean, can the reader really trust a pundit who’s unable to detect even one measly fault within a given work? Is the reviewer the kind of person who refers to Miller High Life as “The Champagne of Beers” unironically? Are they always so generous in their evaluations? 

For the record, (pun intended), this is the gauntlet of challenges that I subject an album to before arriving at this sort of determination: 

  1. Does the album, to the best of my knowledge, genuinely express the intention of the artist without being muddled or compromised by gladhandsy producers, label heads, etc.?
  2. When listened to as a whole, does the album maintain a cogent sonic arc, (i.e., is the sequencing effective)? 
  3. Does the album improve upon, refine, and/or meaningfully redefine an artist’s already established sound? 
  4. Does the production support and/or flatter the album’s slate of compositions? 
  5. Do the tunes actually move me? (Not, “do I adore every fleeting movement of every single song?” but rather, “are these compositions compelling, surprising and thought provoking?”)

In my 12-plus years of professionally reviewing albums, I’ve awarded less than five records a perfect score. Suffice it to say, I do not welcome Messa’s fourth lp The Spin into that ultra-rarefied company lightly.

Messa’s strength lies in their ability to repurpose the sonic etiquette of the doom metal genre in order to fabricate something that’s consequential, accessible, and wonderfully peculiar. While their early albums mirrored the molasses requiems of Earth and raised a toast to lava lamp-era Sabbath, they also indulged the broody/sensual noodlings of Dire Straits and the distant-satellite-idiosyncrasies of Meddle-era Pink Floyd. 

Yet though all of their output makes for easy recommendations, it’s The Spin that finally shoulders Messa out of the niche, best-kept-secret parameters they’ve been snagged in and onwards towards the oh, so elite, “many are called but few are chosen” province of unequivocal, rock n’ roll preeminence. This is analogous to Soundgarden’s flight path from Badmotorfinger to Superunknown. The Spin refines Messa’s sound, introduces new trajectories, (in this case 80’s-era goth rock), and never forfeits any of the band’s charm or individuality in the process.

“At Races” Projekt Record’s style snare tone and its flanged-out bass guitar is excellent fun. But then, just as you feel that you’ve absorbed the composition’s gist, 3:12 throws in a mesmeric, equal parts sultry-to-psychedelic passage that’s paradoxically both logical and uncanny before further opening up into an expanse of such wanton lushness that it nearly put’s Type O Negative’s magnum bodice-ripper October Rust to shame.

Or consider “The Dress,” an eight-plus minute power ballad that manages to warehouse a magnificent chamber-jazz movement at 4:35. It weds these disparate impulses perfectly.  

These sorts of maneuvers are evocative of artistic sovereignty. The Spin is a deeply rewarding album from a band whose time has come.

Buy this album, (and that’s an order), here.