The Messthetics, Live at the Brudenell

Brudenell presents...

The Messthetics
+ Special Guests TBA

30.01.2019 | £10.00 ADVANCE (+stbf) | 19:30 Doors

https://themessthetics.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/themessthetics/

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The
last time drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally were in a band
together, they were the rhythmic architects for Fugazi, an organization
whose decade and a half of disciplined progressivism provided a
necessary bridge between the zenith of late-punk ex- pression and
everything alternative in rock that followed. In 2016, the two were
enlisted by guitarist Anthony Pirog in a conspiracy to subvert and
reimagine the power trio, bringing fully into the 21st Century a form
that may have reached near perfection with Hen- drix’s Band of Gypsys on
the very first day of the 1970s.
With a self-titled recording
scheduled for release in the Spring of 2018 on Dischord, the Messthetics
will widen the reach of a decisive instrumental music that so far, they
have only shared with a privileged handful of east coast and southern
audiences. Across its eight original compositions and one cover, Anthony
guides the sound through complex changes and harmonic densities that
might com- pound, but never confound or muddy its connection with the
listener’s body. Recorded by Brendan in their practice space, the
group’s debut gives Anthony ample opportunities to swap guitar textures
and styles as freely as an octopus changes patterns.
Brendan’s kit
has a big heavy bell that he brought back from the Fugazi days. He
maneuvers through this rhythmically shifty music with a fluid briskness
that is periodically disrupted by the clang of his bell. Joe spent 8
years in Italy, among other things, woodshed- ding on eastern rhythms
counted in 7 and 13, perfect preparation for the oddly-metered work of
the Messthetics. He brings a rock- solid foundation to the groove at the
same time playing a harmonic complement as ambitious and interesting as
Anthony’s lines.
Bands can be dangerous when their members have
accrued enough mileage to see their chops season into something like
musical wis- dom. When that understanding has the rare opportunity to
percolate through a collaborative environment founded in love and
anchored in gratitude, well, then shit can get rather intense. Anthony
Pirog writes difficult music because original music usually is. Yet the
ideas that he feeds through the Messthetics, are embraced by the
Canty-Lally time machine, not just with precision and nuance, but with
soul, joy, and groove. These last three are, indeed, the big guns in
this spiritual war that music must become in the post-Trump era.
Their performances and this debut recording have a lift and buoyancy that
reflect back into the audience the love and gratitude at the foundation
of this trio’s journey.