Opening with
Mike Hugg's title track, which builds on
Mick Rogers' intense riffing and the killer vocals of
Vicki Brown,
Judith Powell,
Liza Strike, and
Ruby James,
Messin' is pretty intense and involving from its very first bars. It's also damned topical and serious, for all of the free-wheeling rock & roll spirits and the progressive rock complexities that go into the playing. And the result is a spellbinding whole, featuring some astonishing keyboard flourishes by
Manfred Mann himself (who ventures into
Rick Wakeman and
Keith Emerson territory on "Buddah," even as the rest of the band seems to be emulating
Deep Purple) and killer guitar from
Mick Rogers, while
Colin Pattenden and
Chris Slade lay down the rhythm section like a pair of articulate pile-drivers. They pretty much stomp their way through their rendition of
Bob Dylan's "Get Your Rocks Off" and do a gorgeous high-wattage blues rendition of "Black and Blue." The whole record comes out somewhere in the middle of art rock and heavy metal, along with (amazingly enough) topical folk, and does no violence to any of the genres -- and the band even works in a loose-limbed version of
Dr. John's "Mardi Gras Day" as a finale. In a way, it's surprising from hearing this record that it took this band another two years, and an embrace of one of
Bruce Springsteen's songs, for
Manfred Mann's Earth Band to become truly well known, because all of the ingredients were in place, and their genre-bending sound was only the best, most accessible kind. The album was also issued with a different cover as
Get Your Rocks Off, but
Messin' has become the reissue title.