MESSTHETICS - Deface The Currency

Between the Eighties and Nineties of the last millennium, Fugazi stood as one of the most significant symbols of an uncompromising, Diy-oriented approach to making music, driving forces behind a genre they helped build from scratch, laying down its stylistic coordinates: post-hardcore. After decades of being snubbed by snooty academics and purists, who would ever have bet a dollar that Fugazi's rhythm section – Brandon Canty and Joe Lally – would become absolutely central to the economy of the 2020s avant-jazz scene? An unpredictable short-circuit, sparked first by the fortunate collision with guitarist Anthony Pirog (a virtuoso improviser with whom Canty and Lally formed Messthetics) and then with New York post-bop saxophonist James Brandon Lewis. The four musicians make dissent the cornerstone of their approach, one for which a label like "crossover" seems almost too limiting, as they move between sonic anarchy, bold dissonance and intellectual honesty.

"Deface The Currency" is the second act of sabotage carried out against pre-established genres: post-hardcore, jazz, noise, funk, prog, fusion, post-rock, all dissolved in acid and reassembled according to their own personal vision. What emerges – and this was also what set Fugazi apart from so many of their contemporaries – is a natural inclination toward groove: to get an objective sense of it, just listen to the opening one-two of "Deface The Currency" and "Gestations", where every note seems driven by the need to reject reassuring labels in favor of creative freedom, delivered through sonic assaults of rare effectiveness.

"Clutch" is the heart of the album: a relentless chase between sax and guitar that recalls the duels between Robert Fripp and Mel Collins in the days of "Starless". There are also more atmospheric moments, tucked into the folds of "30 Years Of Knowing" and "Universal Security", but the instinct is always to scar the melody, delivering something genuinely challenging and surprising, proof of just how strongly the heart of Washington Dc still beats, even as it moves through increasingly complex arrangements.

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26/02/2026