A strutting electric guitar comes into focus and is quickly met with a bouncy but threatening bass that will usher in a stampede of percussive grooves capable of eviscerating anything that comes in their path.
URL: https://www.messerband.com/
The beats are swinging with a poppy effervescence, but they’re filtered through a scooped EQ that quakes the ground beneath our stereo speakers even at a moderate volume. Spitfire vocals dispense a gritty melodicism that will grip onto our hearts tightly as we descend upon the decadent discord that is Messer’s new single “Unfvckwitable.” Featuring a larger than life sonic profile that borrows from Black Sabbath as much as it does something just a little more alternative and present in the modern context of relevancy, Messer is issuing one of the most creative and eccentrically experimental rock tracks of 2022 in their most recent studio offering, and it’s an intriguing listen, to say the least.
“Unfvckwitable” is steeped in the gloss and pomp of 80’s hair bands, but there’s a touch of contemporary progressive rock in their approach to songwriting that saves the framework from being too over the top for my taste. The track plays out like an orchestral movement much more than it does a pop song, though it features an unforgiving hook in its anthemic chorus that will get stuck in your head even in uninvolved cursory listens. This doesn’t minimize the complexities of the instrumental arrangement at all; if anything, it actually magnifies the band’s dexterity in the track’s more difficult moments.
The guitar parts are plenty virtuosic and satiate my hunger for solid solos, and I think it’s worth mentioning that they don’t devolve into haughty, frill-happy breakdowns that wouldn’t have served this type of song very well at all. There are a lot of rock bands still playing like it’s 1988 and assuming that they can get away with spending two full minutes on an indulgent expression of machismo, but Messer is too smart for that kind of nonsense. There’s enough muscle here to suit anyone’s needs, and other than the cerebral guitar solo that pins everything together towards the conclusion of the song, nothing ever escapes the meticulous placement of the players in the master mix of “Unfvckwitable.”
SMART URL: https://messer.ffm.to/unfvckwitable
Heavy rock has a new heavyweight band in Messer, and I think that theirs is a sound that shouldn’t have too much trouble sticking out in the crowded pool of talent that the genre is currently enjoying. The clubby crooning and pop polish applied to the finish here never come close to the realm of oversaturation, and as long as this group continues to produce material of this streamlined style, I haven’t any doubts as to whether or not they’re going to become a big draw in and out of their scene. They’ve already been attracting a lot of attention at home, and with “Unfvckwitable” getting a warm reception from critics nationally, I’ve got a feeling that this won’t be the last time that their moniker is making headlines.
Chadwick Easton