CHAINLACING - Messuage

If once upon a time people spoke exclusively of dream-pop and shoegaze, today, with a bit of imagination, a new and rather fitting label can also be brought into play, because gloomgaze is truly the most apt term to describe the music of this band, Chainlacing.
Rick Martel and Lauren Crosser, bouncing between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, only recently got this project off the ground, arriving at this debut (they were discovered by These Hands Melt, an Italian label very active in the international underground circuit) after a string of flawless singles.

The album, in truth, kicks off with the rough post-punk of “Petty Pleas”, before immediately plunging into dreamlike atmospheres bordering on the most melancholic dark universe: such is the case with “Overdetermined”, the brief “Fragile” (where the sound takes on ethereal wave touches) or the disorienting “Sublimate”, the latter shot through with a subtle noise capable of swelling into a suffocating wave. Gloomgaze, as we said, a vertical line whose roots can be traced back to the early work of Cranes (try listening to the superb “Stay”) and beyond, because Chainlacing's musical spectrum can even be laden with dark omens: the disturbed sonic ritual of “Sidon” is proof of that, not to mention the black carpets accompanying the crescendo of “Compulsion”, a track descended from certain Lycia moments and the most rarefied, annihilating coldwave.

It rains a lot in New England, so much that the green nature of the great forests fades into the greyness of a leaden sky, where the notes of an introspective, reflective work resound, perfect for embracing that autumn season so many people look forward to. “Messuage” is a pleasant surprise, because it combines the spirit of a sudden storm with the talent of its performers, who are certainly far from any kind of innovation but at least bring pure passion and devotion to the cause: in service of undefined, abstract, transcendent sounds.

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28/06/2026