Messa have been skulking in the shadows of your city’s gloomiest record store for more than a decade, but it was the release of ‘The Spin’ last year that finally brought their gothic rock talents to light. The Italian four-piece are now playing some of the largest shows of their career thus far, and Nottingham was more than happy to receive them on Thursday night. They, together with The Night Eternal, had us spellbound.

The Night Eternal

The Night Eternal are quite a theatrical band— you could’ve figured that out from their merchandise designs even before the group walked onto the stage— and their Colder Than Velvet tour is proving to be a welcome excuse for Baum and company to flex some creative muscle. For as fun and infectious as it wound up being, the set was cloaked in camp and mystique, with dazzling strobe lights and heavy usage of fog machines painting the band in darkness for much of the show. It was only in the brief pauses between each track (and after the show, when the group came into the crowd to meet fans and enjoy the night’s headliners) that you got a sense of the people behind these endearing goth rock tunes. At Rescue Rooms, the bombastic melodies of ‘Prince Of Darkness’ were nothing if not mysterious.

New record ‘Cold Velvet’ made up much of the setlist this time around, and these songs felt far more daring and adventurous in the live setting than they do on the record: you can thank drummer Aleister Präkelt for that, first and foremost, who revelled in throwing blast beats and flashy fills into the fray again and again across the show. Singles ‘Where This Worlds Ends’ and ‘Caught In A Spell’ were nothing if not infectious as part of this near-flawlessly mixed performance— you could hear every Ricardo Baum refrain and Rob Richter lead part ringing out across the venue, and both were playing with confidence and swagger. Once they had some momentum behind them, The Night Eternal seemed primed to take over the world. If fans wanted to hear hit track ‘In Tartarus,’ which was notably absent on Thursday night, they’ll just have to wait for the headlining tour that seems inevitable at this point.

Messa

Messa actually performed at Rescue Rooms last year, playing second fiddle to Paradise Lost: it’s heartwarming to see the band returning so soon, stepping up into the headlining slot after the runaway success of ‘The Spin.’ Bianchin and company proved themselves to be extremely endearing by set’s end, but they weren’t here to make friends— their show opened with plumes of smoke and atmospheric drones, leading straight into the grinding riffs of ‘Babalon.’ Right from the off, the throaty tone of Marco Zanin’s bass was inescapable, providing a backbone for doom metal cuts more enrapturing than they were downright heavy. Frontwoman Sara Bianchin’s mic probably wanted to be turned up a little, but her voice was nonetheless divine when it could be heard fluttering above the chaos: needless to say, Messa had us in the palm of their hand from the moment they launched into ‘At Races.’

Despite the intoxicating darkness wrapped around them, the four-piece acted less like a conventional metal band and more like a jazz outfit— the duelling solos of set highlight ‘The Dress,’ complete with the brass accompaniments of guest saxophonist Rachel Burnett, were genuinely virtuosic, seeing guitarist Alberto Piccolo gliding across the setlist like he and his instrument were one and the same. ‘The Spin’ made up a hearty portion of the setlist in Nottingham, with the roaring crescendos of ‘Thicker Blood’ and the fascinating slide guitar of ‘Reveal’ earning some of the loudest cheers of the night. More impressive than that, however, was Messa’s ability to keep you mesmerised even between hits. The extended solo leading into the ‘Pilgrim’ and the mournful bass intro to show closer ‘Hour of the Wolf’ were no less incredible than ‘Void Meridian’ was: this eighty-minute exhibition went by in the blink of an eye, and had our jaws on the floor the whole time.