MESSA at The Garage, London 2026

Honouring the early nights and post-Halloween thinning-of-the-veil, one arrives in Highbury and Islington mentally already prepared for tasteful glissandos from dark riff-heavy sways to the technical prowess of a prog rock gig. The still-witchy energy in the air is made doubly potent by having way more women than usual at a doom gig (and thank God for that!).

The Night Eternal

While on first drum hit and vocal soar, The Night Eternal feels a bit too uptempo to pair with Messa‘s velvety doom, what ties them excellently together is their loyalty to the 80s. A song like ‘Eurydice (Don’t Look Back)’ brings up everything that made that music era memorable – it’s sexy, it’s catchy, it’s danceable, it drives like a roaring Mustang and hits the chorus hard enough to be irresistible to sing along to. They made me think of Blind Guardian, with that epic adventure energy that major chords over an unstoppable drum kit seem to conjure, but in a glowing neon cityscape with fast cars instead of a verdant fantasy world awash with dragons. Oh, also, bring back dreads in metal, they are a character in and of themselves! The Night Eternal‘s latest album, Cold Velvet, is out now from Metal Blade Records.

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Messa

The Garage stage stays dark as the Messa quartet take to it, with Sara Bianchin every inch of dark glamour you’d expect from a film noir femme fatale. Framed as she is by the white spotlight and her long black wavy hair, when she opens her mouth to sing, the usual raucousness of the venue subsides. People turn away from the bar, settle into listening, start swaying. The quiet ‘Babalon’ floats over us like a Black Sabbath album opener slowed to 30bpm and weighs us down with swan-like grace, the very sonic representation of that yoga invitation to land back in your body.

The release of their fourth studio album The Spin and especially  ‘Fire on the Roof’ would have set radios ablaze had this been 1985. As things stand, the psychedelic doom community had to pull double duty to get the word out for what I believe to be one of the best records and singles put out since the start of the millennium. Taking the virtuosity of metal, the outlandish stylistic jumps of jazz and the steady down groove of doom, guitarist Alberto Piccolo embodied decades and generations of iconic musicianship in just one 90 minute set. Gritty riffs and creative solos that never outstay their welcome, nor waver in their clear forward trajectory, it’s what I associate with the very best of American music culture, the heavy blues and bottomless talent of Nashville and New Orleans.

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Their 12 year journey as a band is clearly tracked in their discography. You can hear the tighter emotional songwriting in ‘At The Races’ and ‘The Dress’, with the really surprising tempo drops after the second chorus, when they open it up for Alberto’s guitar to shine, in a New York jazz night fashion where anything might happen and they’re just riffing off each other, before bringing it back for a gigantic final chorus to tie it all together. By contrast, the stunning ‘Pilgrim’ off their third album Close draws more from traditional doom and like a meditation circle, its intent is the most trance-inducing, from its Phrygian Arabic-sounding main riff to the steady, barely restrained drum beat.

Returning for an encore with ‘Hour of the Wolf’ (the piece closest to The Night Eternal‘s soundscape, incidentally), Messa and the crowd revel for one last adventure in each other’s company. Self-assured in their glamour and magnetic in their emotional truthfulness, throughout the night there never was virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake, but the application of great talent to the better translation of the worldless inner world of our messy hearts.

Our collaborator Nat met with the band on their release tour of last year and had an amazing conversation about The Spin, their inspirations and especially the creation of the amazing music videos that accompanied it, read more about it HERE.