Video: Massage, ‘In Gray & Blue’

Kevin Bronson on January 9th, 2022

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File under: More unfinished business from 2021 …

L.A. five-piece Massage spent a busy 2021 rubbing fans of what has been called “the true indie-pop” the right way. Which is to say their guitar-driven, synth-accented sound masterfully counterposes sunny melodies and wistful melancholia, exuding an innocence that belies their deft songcraft. Back in the day, this music was played by boys in collared shirts and girls in horizontal stripes. Or vice versa.

The band includes singer-guitarist Alex Naidus, a co-founder of one of the bands that carried the torch for the Aughts’ indie-pop renaissance, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Naidus is joined by singer-guitarist Andrew Romano, singer-keyboardist Gabrielle Ferrer, bassist David Rager and drummer Natalie de Almeida.

Last year, Massage released an album (their second) and an EP, both produced by Jed Smith, Lewis Pesacov and the band. And it’s hard to find a clunker on either.

“The songs on ‘Still Life’ and ‘Lane Lines’ seem to straddle the line between indie and pop without exactly being ‘indie pop,’” Romano says. “To me they feel more like descendants of ‘college rock’ — a moment that lasted from about 1986 to 1991, right before the underground and the mainstream converged, when it seemed like any scrappy indie band might stumble across a hit.”

The La’s come to mind there.* In fact, Massage has rightfully been compared to artists who’d form quite a Hall of Fey: bands on Sarah Records and Flying Nun, singles issued by Creation, the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Feelies, the Go-Betweens, the Cure, the poppier side of New Order … and on and on, through the land of the twee.

You can imagine this music soundtracking a film such as “Lost in Translation.” Or you can simply immerse yourself in Gabrielle Ferrer’s video for “In Gray & Blue.” Being unadorned has scarcely felt so beautiful.

* It is our long-held opinion that “There She Goes” is the perfect pop song.

||| Watch: The video for “In Gray & Blue”

||| Live: Massage is schedule to play Thursday (outdoors) at Permanent Records Roadhouse. Massage also performs Feb. 10 along with Papercuts at at Gold-Diggers. Tickets.

||| Stream: “Still Life” in its entirety