By Paul Robicheau

With chemistry forged on tour, the group fuses jazz, punk, and prog into a fluid live assault.

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis at City Winery. Photo: Paul Robicheau

The Messthetics might seem like a mess on paper, combining post-hardcore punk band Fugazi’s wily rhythm section with an experimental prog-jazz guitar virtuoso, only to add a volcanic tenor saxophonist who taps into the sheets-of-sound spirit of John Coltrane. Yet that addition of James Brandon Lewis, who also has roots in gospel and hip-hop, both expands and stabilizes the group’s sonic direction.

That’s especially true on Deface the Currency, the Messthetics’ second album with Lewis, which benefits from chemistry built from widespread touring and finds the quartet both pushing avant-garde edges as well as honing concise melodic hooks. It’s a challenging yet fluid combination on record — and one given more breathing room live, as the group mashed jazz and rock at Boston’s City Winery this past Tuesday.

James Brandon Lewis at City Winery. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Guitarist Roger Miller of opening act the Trinary System took a jab at City Winery’s supper-club vibe by joking that people could clank silverware in appreciation as his rock combo with drummer Larry Dersch and bassist P. Andrew Willis politely raised a din that crossed early Pink Floyd and Sonic Youth. Miller, who presaged Sonic Youth’s noise-guitar orgies with his work in local art-punk icons Mission of Burma, injected political import on Tuesday, singing “Resistance is not futile.”

Devoid of vocals, the Messthetics hewed closer to jazz, though drummer Brendan Canty found angular ways to bash his kit and guitarist Anthony Pirog evoked both Allan Holdsworth and post-Van Halen firebrands with his fleet, vibrato-wrung runs.

The Messthetics launched their 80-minute turn with the wound-up power of the title track from Deface the Currency, the group’s aural audacity providing its own form of resistance. Lewis unleashed spiraling torrents and Pirog threw in some fractured harmonics as the two lead instrumentalists locked into unison lines that marked much of the set, though each player often laid out when the other soloed.

“30 Years of Knowing” changed the pace as a dreamy, off-kilter blues in which Pirog relaxed into jazz chording. Likewise, the guitarist established total shifts through graceful, gossamer strokes while Lewis offered creamier tenor tones to the nine-minute showpiece “Boatly,” cushioned by Canty on brushes. Yet the band masterfully built tension throughout the piece, capped with sharply picked twangs from Pirog.

In between, the quartet toyed with force, from Joe Lally’s laidback, meaty bass underpinning on  “Emergence” to the double-time rock feel of “Gestations” and “Fourth Wall,” where Pirog karate-chopped at his whammy bar, though it was Lewis who earned an ovation for his closing sax soliloquy of honks and stretched notes.

Anthony Pirog of the Messthetics at City Winery. Photo: Paul Robicheau

The Messthetics also engaged in free-jazz diversions from the new album, from the atmospheric musings of “Universal Security” to an improvisational breakdown amid the riffing drive of “Serpent Tongue (Slight Return).” Leading into that set-closer (yes, its title is a nod to Jimi Hendrix), Pirog also pressed his pedalboard as he summoned deep monster groans from his guitar before going off into skittering runs. Establishing himself as the group’s virtuoso, Pirog blended clean precision with trashy abandon in slash-and-burn bursts that may have been better served by a louder sound mix and brighter stage lighting.

The encore began on the dreamier side again, Lewis serving up bent-note squeals on sax, his pretzel logic fueling some surprisingly accessible jazz-rock. But the group closed the night with a cover of “Once Upon a Time,” the final track from guitarist Sonny Sharrock’s stellar 1991 album Ask the Ages with a quartet that included Coltrane-associated tenor titan Pharoah Sanders and drumming legend Elvin Jones. The piece’s mournful, emotive progression (along with a fitting legato solo by Pirog) provided a fitting conclusion to a night that showed the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis have found their own foursome worth continued explorations (including a turn at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in North Adams on June 27).

Paul Robicheau served more than 20 years as contributing editor for music at the Improper Bostonian, in addition to writing and photography for The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He was also the founding arts editor of Boston Metro.