Cellar Messiah: Drenched 
(Self-released)
Out now
Cellar Messiah are a relatively new Leeds four-piece, flirting with genre classics from shoegaze and dream-pop, adding their own energetic characteristics across their debut EP. Boasting similarities to Spacemen 3, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Loop, they possess a silver bullet that sets them further apart from the aforementioned progenitors: their female vocalist, Mel, who mines even more emotion than these bands.
Leeds’s Cellar Messiah seem to have perfected a booming neu-shoegaze sound in just a few years. This was apparent from a recent show at the Brudenell Social Club (In Colour Festival), where a packed room and a cavernous wall-of-sound projection, combed through with a rollicking rhythm section, made them seem close to a combustion.
Sin, where the guitar intro, alongside the press-mentioned inspirations, conjures thoughts of The Velvet Underground’s minimalist chug. This then leads, with lysergic haze, into the track’s throttling body. Here, similar to the guitar’s avoidance of the genre’s clichés, the vocals sit where Kevin Shield’s do but without a mumble, only a slick glissando.
Window, like the first track, resembles modern shoegaze proponents like Black Doldrums rather than ripping off Loop, perfectly marrying sweet sustained melodies, fuzzy tremolo and chords that hang in the air, balancing minimalism with the propulsive rhythm section that kicks into gear on the heady choruses where their vocalist injects the higher pitch or timbre used by Sharon Van Etten and Nico.
Drenched is beautifully reminiscent of Jesus And Mary Chain, its stirring percussion leading into the heavenly effect of Insane Rain, a slow, iridescent riff and keys evoking beatific joy through a melancholy lens, Cocteau Twins vocalisations bolstering this catharsis. Like the entire EP, this mood builds gradually, cresting towards tidal euphoria – this will surely be felt to a greater extent with future, longer releases.
Listen to Drenched here.
Follow Cellar Messiah on Instagram.
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Review by James Kilkenny. See more of his writing for Louder Than War here.
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