Messa | The Spin | Metal Blade Records

 

Messa, formed in 2014 in Italy, has developed a reputation for bending doom metal into shapes rarely associated with the genre. From the beginning, the quartet sought to pair the foundational weight of doom with atmospheric complexity, often integrating elements of jazz, drone, darkwave, and Eastern musical traditions. Their debut, "Belfry" (2016), marked them as an act of subtle innovation. "Feast For Water" (2018) deepened their unique fusion of heavy tones and moody introspection. With "Close" (2022), the band moved toward a more cinematic, expansive direction, incorporating Mediterranean instrumentation and post-rock inflections. Now, with "The Spin," their fourth studio album and first release under Metal Blade Records, Messa solidifies over a decade of exploration into a concentrated vision.

"The Spin" is a dark and hypnotic journey into fragmented memory, shifting pressure, and intimate confrontation. From its first seconds, it wraps itself in tension and restraint rather than aggression, favoring slow-burning progressions that feel methodically constructed and instinctively reactive. What sets it apart is its stark structural minimalism—repetition is discarded in favor of linear motion. Nothing loops. Everything moves forward.

The interplay between guitars is sparse but texturally layered. Clean passages dominate the mix but carry a storm behind them, trembling with latent distortion and mechanical pulse. Electronics and synthesizers are used with precision: they don’t lead but haunt the edges. At key moments, they swell to the foreground, as in “Fire On The Roof,” where the contribution from Andrea Mantione adds a sense of cold unrest beneath the surface friction.

Vocally, Sara once again resists exaggeration or overemphasis. Her voice floats—not detached, but untethered. Often surrounded by silence, it resonates more like an invocation than a performance. She doesn’t overpower the instrumentation but instead walks with it, as if retelling something she’s already survived.

“The Dress” is emblematic of the band’s stylistic range, its inclusion of trumpet piercing the otherwise overcast tone with a spectral flare, yet remaining distant and mournful rather than dramatic. Elsewhere, tracks like “Reveal” lean toward the gothic melancholy of “The Sound Or Virgin Prunes,” evoking a sense of darkwave influence that is never forced. Messa makes the 1980s references not with retro pastiche but with a raw fascination—what does it feel like to remember the sound of that era, not recreate it?

Drumming and bass, often submerged in previous albums, are given a sharper presence here. Rocco's patterns are tight and restrained, often closer to mechanical than organic, while Marco’s bass tones growl in the background without being overt. The album was recorded in different places at different times, and the resulting atmosphere reflects that fragmentation. And yet, it never feels incoherent. The sense of unity comes not from sonic consistency, but from mood—a mood of discomfort, reflection, and strange serenity.

Despite drawing from a broad palette—doom, goth rock, dark ambient, and even hints of post-industrial noise—“The Spin” is subdued. It doesn’t reach for catharsis. Its seven tracks feel like a ritual left unfinished, a circuit closed too soon. Whether that’s intentional or an echo of its scattered recording approach, it leaves the listener suspended in an unresolved space.

Rather than expand outward, Messa has condensed. There’s less spectacle, more silence. Fewer riffs, more friction. Where their previous works summoned landscapes, “The Spin” feels like a closed room with no corners—a quietly moving structure that keeps folding in on itself.

Score: 8.3/10