Messa: Close and Far Away

Doing something new with doom’s rather traditional template takes some imagination, but Italy’s MESSA have quickly proven themselves to be up to the challenge. Their meticulous but ambitious approach to a doom-fusion style is rooted in down-tuned rock sensibilities, but reaches far beyond conventional genre pairings. Their breakthrough album Feast For Water oozed with lounge jazz flair, without compromising on the riffs and darkness we love, and their latest album Close looks to the near-east for it’s inspiration. We spoke to singer Sara and guitarists Alberto and Marco to hear all about the band’s short history, stage-fright and how they created their unique new album.

“MESSA started in 2014, when me and Marco wanted to start a new project together,” begins Sara. “Soon after, we asked Alberto and Rocco to join us. We had all played in other projects before, and we all knew each other, but none of us had played doom metal before. We wanted to try and play something which we had never played before. At the time it was me and Marco who were into doom metal, mostly; the others liked it too,” she adds. “But that was the initial spark. As soon as we started playing together, we felt like it could work well, so we started to work on some material, which would become our first album Belfry. Then we started doing some gigs and tours and, one thing after another, we recorded and released our second album Feast For Water. And now here we are with Close, the third chapter in our discography,” she beams with pride.

So where do all of these other elements in MESSA come from? “I think it was just a consequence of us being ourselves,” answers Alberto. “We are all very different people from very different musical backgrounds. I come from a prog, 70s, blues and jazz background, while Marco had a band more or less similar to what we are doing now. Rocco, he was mostly into black metal. Sara wasn’t even a singing before MESSA.” We look back at Sara in disbelief. “It almost happened by accident!” She tells us, which we find that difficult to believe. “I know, I was just too shy to sing in front of anybody. In fact, here’s some MESSA trivia for you,” she smiles. “At our first concert, I performed with my back to the audience because I felt so shy. Then all of a sudden we’re playing Hellfest. I just don’t know what happened! I remember reading an interview with Peter Steele from TYPE O NEGATIVE, and apparently he had a stage fright. He used to keep a large glass of red wine next to him on stage for courage,” she continues, now grinning, “and I can relate to that! But now, I’m totally fine with it and really enjoy it, but in the start it was very scary.”

We were surprised to see MESSA taking such a different direction on Close – it’s definitely not a stylistic sequel to Feast For Water. “Yes, the aim of this album was to take our listener on a journey,” agrees Alberto. “These ethnic-acoustic have strong geographical connotations: you can almost imagine the places they come from just by listening to them. We really wanted that effect. We also thought a lot about how we ordered the songs on the album, it had to be that one song led to another. It’s not a concept album, but I like to think it’s still thoroughly through through from start to finish.”

“Yes as Alberto says, the basic idea we had for the album is that of ‘the journey’,” begins Sara. “We wanted to convey all the feelings that accompany you on a journey. I like to describe Close as an experience borne of necessity. During lockdown we all needed to embark on a journey somewhere else: spiritually and in our hearts. Music is an incredibly powerful tool to do that. We are all fascinated by Arabic and Flamenco music, and Alberto has some formal flamenco training. These sounds are very transportive, and this album is us doing our own take on that music.” “For obvious reasons, we were stuck at home,” smiles Alberto, “and so we wanted to use our music as a form of transportation.”

Never satisfied with convention, the band took their music video for lead single Pilgrim to another level: artfully drawing together all the themes of the album with seven minutes of spectacular visuals. “We wanted to shoot the video in Africa,” explains Sara. “It would have been a dream come true, but of course travel restrictions meant that we couldn’t, so instead we shot the video at Dune du Pilat, which is near Bordeaux. It’s the largest sand dune in the whole of Europe. It looks completely unreal,” she enthuses.

“So the video was shot there with the professional dancers who we collaborated with. While we were researching for the album we came into contact with the Nakh, which is a ritual dance performed only by woman and it can be found in Berber communities along the Algerian/Tunisian border. They thrash their hair, and the cool thing about this dance or ritual is the altered state of consciousness which they achieve with this rhythmic display. We found out about the Nakh through the photo on the album’s cover. It conveyed perfectly what we were trying to communicate, so we did some more research and it felt natural to include it in our video; the simple but striking similarity between the Nakh and head banging which you get in metal,” she observes “Two dances from two completely different worlds, but very similar in many ways.” Another perfect fusion from MESSA.

Close is out now via Svart Records.

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