No Fun At All

Mesh — 2026

“Mesh prove that five years away did nothing to dull their edge, only sharpen the hooks.”

Five years is a long time to sit on momentum. Mesh sold out multiple pressings of their 2021 self-titled cassette, then settled back into the Philly scene. No Fun At All is what came out the other side, and the first thing you notice is that the cassette hiss is gone. From the first track, you can hear the focus and cleaner production as Sims Hardin and Allison Durham bring instant clarity to the interplay between their two guitars. Hardin strums in tight, stabbing bursts that owe a debt to early Wire. Durham’s 12 string slides above it with a frantic shimmer. Tom Riese and Steve Darling anchor the rhythm section while the guitars constantly pull against each other.

The writing is sharp here. “Violent Peasant” frames landlord and tenant inequity as a medieval grievance, and the joke lands because the band plays it straight as Hardin and Durham trade vocal lines until the frustration feels completely earned. “Sign” is another track that really highlights the guitars playing in two completely different registers. A few songs settle into the same midtempo push, but the album moves so quickly that another idea is always waiting around the corner. When the band commits to the collision between Durham’s ringing high end and Hardin’s clenched rhythm, this is one of the more exciting guitar records to come out of the current jangle and post punk resurgence. It is also the kind of record that gets more addictive with every replay.