If once we talked exclusively about dream-pop and shoegaze, today with a little imagination we can also introduce some new and fitting associations, because gloomgaze is really the most appropriate term to describe the music of these Chainlacing.
Rick Martel and Lauren Crosser, bouncing between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, gave life to the project only recently, reaching this debut (they were discovered by These Hands Melt, label Italian very active in the circuit underground international) after a series of qualitatively impeccable singles.
The album, to tell the truth, starts with the rough post-punk of “Petty Pleas”, and then immediately sinks into dreamlike atmospheres on the border with the most melancholy dark universe: this is the case of “Overdetermined”, of the short “Fragile” (where the sound it is tinged with suggestions ethereal wave) or the alienating “Sublimate”, the latter crossed by a subtle noise capable of transforming into a suffocating wave. Gloomgazewe were saying, a vertical line whose roots are to be found in the early works of the Cranes (try listening to the superb “Stay”) and beyond, because the musical spectrum of Chainlacing can even be full of dark omens: the disturbed ceremonial sound of “Sidon” is proof of this, without forgetting the black carpets that accompany the crescendo of “Compulsion”, a song born from certain Lycia and the most rarefied and annihilating coldwave.
It rains a lot in the New England region, so much that the green nature of the large forests fades and gets lost in the gray of a leaden sky, where the notes of an introspective, reflective work resonate, perfect for embracing that autumn season that many await. “Messuage” is a pleasant surprise, because it combines the spirit of a sudden storm with the talent of its performers, certainly far from any innovation but at least bearers of pure passion and devotion for the cause: at the service of indefinite, abstract, transcendent sounds.
06/28/2026
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
