The Messengers

After lingering in the backdoors of Melbourne’s venues, whittling away at their craft and doing the hard yards under the sweat-inducing gaze of their peers, The Messengers, following fleeting dalliances with a ditty or two, have finally emerged with their self-titled debut EP—serving as both an homage to blues and an opening door into unprecedented territory.

Laying the law with their first single, “A Song For Courtney”, this straggling lot of understated musos seem determined to push self-constructed frontiers, deviating ever so slightly with psychedelic vocals and shiver-inducing keys. Such a tentative foot in the aforementioned door, although brave, is still ambivalent with its fuzzy and offbeat experimentation.

Their second track “We Can’t Get Along” inspires a reassuring mix of harmonies from the good old days, with a bit more chug-a-lug behind distorted surf guitar. Evoking in the mind of the listener an 8mm salt-encrusted montage of capped waves beating against sun-bleached long boards.

However it is with deliberate design that “Whiskey And Wine” serves as the EP’s symmetrical peak. There is nothing half-arsed or half-thought of in this ode to the to-and-fro of rhythmic blues spruced up like a reworked vintage suit and cast aside for some jazzed sax to devour, sided by voracious female harmonics.

Appetite sated and all, it seems only natural that “On The Run” follows.

Hollowed-out reverb guitar determines the course of the fourth track. The sax, in turn, swells then pulls back allowing the electric to traverse the close-circuited terrain of the blues, where nothing hard has to be pulled; the right notes sweetly pre-determined within the juxtaposed frets.

Despite closing with a slightly lacklustre “In Your Shoes”, The Messengers EP has begun what cannot be stopped: a call for this Melbournian band to release their debut album. We’ve been waiting!

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine

Subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine