HATE MOSS - A Hot Mess

A few months after the EP "Mercimek Days", released last June, Ian Carvalho and Tina Galassi, the duo behind Hate Moss, return with eight new tracks distinguished by their linguistic and stylistic diversity. The songs on "A Hot Mess" are sung in four languages — Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese — a choice that makes the album a perfect export product with a distinctly globalist outlook. But it's a globalism earned with real credibility, thanks to the project's international origins: Hate Moss were formed in London in 2018, out of the meeting between Italian Tina and Brazilian Ian. Hybrid languages, then, moving hand in hand with a melting pot of genres that underscores the duo's artistic restlessness and their firm intent to condense stylistic influences and cultural cross-currents. After all, the album's very title is an anagram, a rearrangement of the letters that spell out the band's name.

The opening title track is on its own a successful synthesis of indie rock and live-played club music, but just as important within the album's overall design is the care put into the lyrics, which bring out social tension and political denunciation, as in the case of "Bianca", which tackles the harrowing subject of workplace deaths with realism and rare delicacy, and "Mentiras", a collective statement against the lies of the late-capitalist world delivered as sturdy Iberian rock.

In "Paradox" the well-placed diversion provided by Tyto's (Beppe Scardino) saxophone unfurls over relentless drums, while on "Amor Sincreto" the atmosphere is enriched by tribal rhythms, embracing world-music shades and a featured appearance by Brazilian Vitor Brauer (Lupe de Lupe).

These cross-pollinations were born during last year's tour, which took in numerous countries across Europe, South America and the Middle East, a reflection of the experiences gained by immersing themselves in the alternative music and cultural scenes of each.

But the record's real leap forward comes in its closing stretch, when the Italian-Brazilian duo prove they can also handle elements of club culture very well, through the techno of "Charon" and the house of "Just Another Dream", all of it aided by the presence of producer and sound designer Pour Atom Oil (Mauro Polito, another Italian transplanted to London), touches that make "A Hot Mess" an even denser industrial-electroclash sonic journey.

The cover art, an acrylic on canvas measuring 60x60 cm made by artist Vhro (Sara Vaccaro), came out of a collaboration between the band and the painter: a dystopian landscape achieved through the digital saturation of religious imagery, reinterpreted on canvas to render its human dimension.

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12/02/2026