Generally I do not like the idea of reviewing jazz next to popular music. After all, how do you place Bob Dylan alongside John Coltrane? I love both of them dearly, but there is just something that makes these genres exist on two entirely different plains. This time, however, I totally give in to the urge as this album goes well beyond genre constraints. This is a collaboration between an American jazz saxophonist and former members of Fugazi. 'Wildly intriguing' is the least that you can say about that.
I shudder at the idea of jazz rock. Mercifully, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis LP is not that. It is what it is: adventurous avant-garde jazz with an intense Fugazi rhythm section. The album has so much edge to its sound that it bleeds profusely all over the place and yet manages to keep everything extremely tight.
The album opens with "L'Orso" that sets the tone perfectly with great musicianship and a melody that builds up all the time and sometimes ventures into an ominous King Crimson territory. Then comes the single "Emergence" and this just may be my favourite piece of music from 2024. Three minutes of heart-pumping intensity whose sax-screeching climax is pure punk bliss. The second single is "That Thing" with an unforgettable riff that makes me think of a Moroccan bazaar in the middle of an African desert. Things calm down a little on "Three Sisters" with, again, some beautiful interplay and intensity bubbling under the surface.
"Boatly" is one of the album's biggest highlights. A swirling, ballad-like composition with a memorable instrumental hook and a floating melody that stops in the middle and becomes this enchanting guitar-driven coda with sax, bass and drums piling up beautifully until the very end. "The Time Is The Place" is slightly less distinctive but nevertheless features some frenetic Fugazi-like sections. "Railroad Trucks Home" has a lot more restraint to it and gets by on a memorable soft rhythm that could be the most traditional thing on the whole album. After the brief but pretty interlude "Asthenia" we reach the end with the brilliant "Fourth Wall" that is built entirely on this part-beautiful/part-sinister Messthetics' groove that erupts occasionally with guitar and sax solos.
Interestingly, I am rarely in the mood to listen to Fugazi albums. When I do, they always sound great but their charms are mostly intellectual rather than emotional. This album (released by the legendary jazz label Impulse! Records) has it all: intensity, experimentation, warmth. I have been listening to it for a week now and I am still completely enamoured with it. This album is for those who are afraid of jazz. And, obviously, for those who are not.