Broken Water Are Tempests

Someone has apparently forgotten to tell Sonic Youth that they retired. Because after listening to Tempest the latest album from Broken Water I'm quite convinced that they never retired but just disappeared and then came back as this band. Tempest is like a companion piece to the legendary guitar onslaught of Daydream Nation or Sister and could very well be a long lost Sonic Youth album that was never released.

Noisy, ramshackle, and torn to shreds Tempest is a fine album of guitar wrangling, droned out vocals, slashing drums and songs that seemed ripped apart for our benefit. If you can imagine Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine producing Sonic Youth in an ancient analog studio you are on the right track as to how Broken Water sound when they're playing. Tempest at times sounds warped, distorted beyond comprehension, and so lost in its own miasma it doesn't know how to get out. It's really quite good stuff that brings classic noise pop and indie rock into a head on collision with post shoegazing haze. Broken Water are exceptionally efficient at duct taping this whole thing together and making it sound as if Sonic Youth had possessed their souls and were having their way with them.

Cacophonous, chaotic and crazy good, Tempest is a fine record from a band who may or may not include Thurston Moore as one of its members. Regardless of its make-up the band manage to do things to their instruments that may or may not be legal in the upper 48. This is a record that sounds like it was recorded on a tape machine that whose heads were magnetized and scrambled parts of the recording around inadvertently. In other words it sounds amazing and one of the coolest and swaggertastic noise records to come out this year.