It’s nice when a band wears the influence of their hometown on their sleeves. Olympia, Washington, USA is the home of Broken Water, among so many other great current and former bands – most notably, Sleater-Kinney, Beat Happening, The Microphones, and the pre-Seattle roots of Nirvana.

The drear of the Pacific Northwest shadows its big treetops and rushes a grey wind through the rain that falls like broken water. If such a fleeting sense of environment and place in the world can be taken out neatly and be put into words and music, Broken Water have uprooted the sludge of Olympia and kindly spattered it over their own somber, disheveled brand of grimy post-punk shoegaze.

“Heal” off the new Whet LP is a wrestle between soft female pop melodies and the noise of guitars that both trickle out in defeat. “I got lost in the past in the future…I can’t escape,” murmurs drummer and singer Kanako Wynkoop before the fated build-up of distorted guitars.

Somewhere between Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, Broken Water give a new direction to the current path of music coming out of the Pacific Northwest. Their LP Whet is out now on Night People Records, and the band is currently touring the States (as I hope for a NZ show).

Download “Heal” from the Impose Magazine blog here.

posted by Jeff Bell