Broken Water - Tempest (CD)

Jesus, this album often resembles Bardo Pond getting the Swirlies trashed in a squat, like proper primal, druggy and possessed indie rock but with this untamed demented tremelo'd pop sensibility driving through its veins. The songs where Abi sings are the cutest doses of phantasmagoric smack rock you'll hear right now on the US underground, proper maelstroms of sky shattering guitar meshing and downer space pixie vocals whilst the drums are often straight garage feral.

Guitarist Jon Hanna's songs are more cool slacker early '90s buzzbombs with a homely drawl draped over bafflingly familiar hooks. Yeah he does sound a bit Thurston. The third track 'Yank Dyagileva' conjures up prime Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and NY's Versus with a hint of the slightly dangerous A-Frames towards the end. Does anyone recall Babe the Blue Ox or X27? Hmmmm…I'm getting too obscure maybe?

This three piece have written a timeless melodic '90s US indie rock album, stacked with hits as far as I'm concerned and a couple of endearingly weak moments, one of which sounds a bit like Pearl Jam FM radio punk angst near the end but is still somehow cool.

But the gems for me are still where Abi sings, I'm smitten, this music so often rides on her murky rumbling bass and pure sad tones whilst Jon Hanna lets loose with hot wild guitar shredding and the steady earthy drums piledrive away. Both tight but brilliantly loose, these youngsters have developed rapidly since their last couple of wax platters chirped up the scene for us older, set-in-our-ways types.

This is the sound I loved when I was younger, done so, so well it makes me grin from ear to ear.  A list of bands never hurts so if you like OLD groups like Swirlies, Treepeople, Pain Teens, early Medicine, MBV, Sonic Youth, dustDEVILS, St. Johnny, early Afghan Whigs...I'm sure I even heard Siouxsie and the Banshees laced through one track, then this gorgeous racket is yours. So not a brand new sound but I love bendy guitar noise that sounds like abrasive velvet on a stylus and 'Tempest' has lots of this and hooks that glue themselves in yr mind like aural marmite.