Tom Mess - Pretty Messed (2025)

Exquisitely Heartfelt Alt. Country From the Karlsruhe Delta in Downtown Germany. *Mysterious Marvin is actually Marvin Klippel who is the touring pedal-steel player for Tom Mess’s band.

The intense opening track Cord Sherpa sounds like something that may have come from a jam session between The Heartbreakers, Drive By Truckers and Chuck Prophet. Without having access to the lyrics or Mess’s notes I’m not sure what a Cord Sherpa is, but that doesn’t matter as the arrangement and Mess’s voice grab your heartstrings and don’t let go until the last note hovers in the air.
This is immediatly followed by the singer taking up the acoustic guitar while the band roll along like prairie wind in the background on Nothin’ Gold.

Unlike some of his American contempories who constantly try to evolve from the sound that made them famous; Tom Mess sticks fastidiously to the type of Country Rock that he fell in love with following a lifetime in a series of hardcore noisy Punk Rock bands, which only comes to light in some of his bittersweet choruses, Mess inhabits the world we associate Springsteen, Mellencamp and Jason Isbell with; creating picturesque landscapes and small town imagery that fill your senses in under 5 minutes.

Perfect examples of that craft come at you in Liquor Hand, ’bout leavin’ and Out of The Blue will all blow you away mentally if you turned up at a bar/club on a Tuesday night to find the band playing to 20 people.
So far I’ve failed to mention the slick pedal steel that cuts through absolutely everything here, either courtesy the mysterious Marvin, who doesn’t appear to have a surname that I can find; or more likely Jesse Cunningham; and I recommend you hunt out the playing on This Trap which certainly aids the pain in Mess’s world weary voice.

Of course this is an album, very much the sum of its parts, with very little commercially suitable for radio; but that’s the whole point … these are stories that are meant to be listened to in solitude; be that in the car or more likely at the end of a long hard day with the lights turned down low.