Mesh: No Fun At All [Album Review] – The Fire Note

Five years is a very long time to sit down on momentum. Mesh offered out a number of pressings of their 2021 self-titled cassette, then settled again into the Philly scene. No Fun At All is what got here out the opposite facet, and the very first thing you discover is that the cassette hiss is gone. From the primary monitor, you possibly can hear the main focus and cleaner manufacturing as Sims Hardin and Allison Durham carry instantaneous readability to the interaction between their two guitars. Hardin strums in tight, stabbing bursts that owe a debt to early Wire. Durham’s 12 string slides above it with a frantic shimmer. Tom Riese and Steve Darling anchor the rhythm part whereas the guitars consistently pull towards one another.

The writing is sharp right here. “Violent Peasant” frames landlord and tenant inequity as a medieval grievance, and the joke lands as a result of the band performs it straight as Hardin and Durham commerce vocal strains till the frustration feels fully earned. “Sign” is one other monitor that basically highlights the guitars enjoying in two fully completely different registers. Just a few songs settle into the identical midtempo push, however the album strikes so shortly that one other concept is at all times ready across the nook. When the band commits to the collision between Durham’s ringing excessive finish and Hardin’s clenched rhythm, this is likely one of the extra thrilling guitar information to return out of the present jangle and submit punk resurgence. It can also be the type of file that will get extra addictive with each replay.