Messed up

Messed Up: Raw Punk Rock Energy

Messed Up are four young women who have been living in Warsaw as immigrants for some time. The band originally comes from the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish and Lithuanian borders. Messed Up was founded in 2015 with the intention of escaping the lethargy of their post-Soviet homeland and confronting the social expectations and constraints of their own environment with self-empowerment and creativity. In the small Belarusian subculture, which was often affected by repression and a lack of understanding, at least a temporary escape from everyday society was possible. Touring other cities and neighbouring countries broadened their own horizons better than Instagram and Vk.com. The band quickly found themselves at home in a D.I.Y. scene in which bands, organisers and clubs know each other well, but often have to operate on the fringes of society. After several years of perfecting their bone-dry, to-the-point punk rock and releasing a digital EP, Messed Up delivered an eleven-song debut album of consistently melodic punk rock at the end of 2019 with "Everything You Believe In". Singer Nastya's powerful voice is often reminiscent of her colleagues from Distillers, Hole or L7. The band's Russian-language lyrics pursue social and political hotspots such as racism, homophobia or social ignorance - developed from a personal, lyrical perspective without slogans.In the cover of Iggy Pop's famous song "You Wanna Be My Dog", the lyrics are slightly altered, giving an old song new relevance. "Everything You Believe In" is not only the album title, but certainly also the driving force for this young band, the reason to keep going. They refuse to be a conformist part of the patriarchal and oppressive society of the former USSR. They shout out loudly what they reject and continue to sail against the strong winds of the reactionary zeitgeist. Like many others, they have since had to leave their country and try to build a new life in Poland.