Water Damage

If you’re familiar with Water Damage, then expectations are set for Instruments, the group’s fourth album. The band, monolithic as ever, turns dirge into destruction. They foster the slow erosion of ego as they whittle away resolve and resistance to the ebb and flow of their drone. Water Damage is a tectonic force, something born of nature, and by turns just as unstoppable. Working as a symbolic organism the band’s ten members turn rhythm and thrum into a hypnotic wave, impossible to ignore, impossible to repel. The only true way to really experience Water Damage is to lay back into the fray, let it wash over you and surf the surge, trying to hold on as best you can to the walls of the psyche.

On the opener, drums crash, and the room fills with the thick miasma of madness. The band oscillates between panic and punishment. Why are we here you might wonder? The band’s soul-scrub is about as cathartic as you’re gonna get. There’s no notion of letting up as the band explores the next three side-long lacerations. Occasionally the room might clear for a quick breath, but as on “Reel 32,” the space is just as unsettling as the saturated moments. When the band retreats, there’s a feeling of being surrounded, a notion of eyes all around ready to pounce. This time around the band expand their circle with guest spots from Patrick Shiroishi and David Grubbs. The former adds a layer of singe to “Reel 28’s” din. Grubb’s meanwhile amps up the unease everywhere that his guitar graces. They prove perfect additoins to the ensemble’s clockwork crush. The slow-motion whirlpool of Water Damage never lets up on Instruments, but we’re treated to some harrowing new depths, and it’s always fascinating to see where they go next.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.