Mezzanine - Novella

Author

Aaran Gicquel

Published

Monday 23rd January

Gun Fever

Local avant-post-grunge rockers Mezzanine, debut explosively with their extended tale, a Novella as the title suggests and drive down the throats of the willing with catchy sweet choruses and distorted power chords.

Mezzanine have performed their fair share of great and woefully terrible shows, some may remember a doomed night at the Rocket Room with a drum machine and since learned many a lesson the hard way. In recording they deliver as much emotion and deliver Novella with the same intensity that makes them electric on stage.

One word of caution when loading Novella into your car stereo for the first time, ‘Can’t Feel a Thing’ bursts out of the speakers in full force, it may just wake you up a little to fast. ‘Can’t Feel a Thing’ features huge bends full bodied guitars and blasting drums. The next thing to take a hold is the delivery of lead singer Cory Rists lines are tight and ring a resemblance to Cobain’s vocals on Nirvanas first record Bleach.

While ‘Can’t Feel a Thing’ is by far has the highest energy, The title track ‘Novella’ and tale end bookmark ‘Apologies’ are a nice dive into a softer side of Mezzanine. Although the eternal slacker in me loves the laid back vocal delivery on these songs, reminiscent of Thurston Moore and Lou Barlow. Their just seems to be a little bit lacking in accompaniment and I can’t pin it down, could be that the drums don’t resonate big enough or that the thundering power chords overrule just little to much over the rest of the experimental sounds hiding in the background layers of the recording. None the less the songs are solid and emulate label mates Kill Teen Angsts song structure and catchiness.

Mezzanine are one of those bands to keep an eye on refreshing the 90’s revival I’ve been waiting so long for. Novella is full of moments to head bang and time to reflect. With defined life and torture in ‘Can’t Feel a Thing’ and the slacker effect on ‘Novella’ mostly win me over. I’m still left wanting more from a few moments that don’t bring it home all the way. But enthusiastically I await a full length or second EP to emerge and finish off what Novella has started to layout on compact disc but for now dive in.