Olympia, Washington, has a way of birthing bands that sound like they’ve been marinating in rainwater and road trips. Waves Crashing (Josh Calisti on guitar and vocals, Bryce Albright on drums, and Zach Olson on bass) aren’t here to reinvent the wheel; they’re here to let it roll fast, skip a curb, and spray you with whatever’s left in the puddle.
Calisti’s been on the move since New Jersey, detouring through Denver before finding a home among the moss and fog of the Pacific Northwest. Albright hails from Reno, while Olson never strayed far from Washington soil. Together, they’ve cut their teeth in the region’s alternative scene, building a steady trail of releases and tours that led to their first full-length, Effection. Written in Calisti’s woodland hideaway and recorded at Joshua Charette’s Elma studio, the album features Charette adding bass and synth, Beatrix Sky on backing vocals, and a Pablo Martin (Lulu Lewis, Tom Tom Club) remix of Comatose for extra voltage.
On paper, Effection nods toward the halcyon days of early ’90s PNW indie rock, brushes against the halcyon lens of British shoegaze, and takes cues from modern dream rock. On record, it’s less about polite homage and more about collision: crystalline riffs that unravel into distortion, airy vocal lines swallowed by tidal waves of fuzz. The melodies carry a certain tenderness, but they’re never fragile; they swell, break, and reform with purpose.
The band threads in themes of mortality, mental strain, and daily anxieties without dipping into preachiness. You hear it in the propulsion of the drums, in guitars that suddenly flare skyward, in basslines that ground the whole thing when it threatens to drift. One track will build patiently, like a cloudbank on the horizon; the next will open wide in a rush of sunlight before collapsing back into haze.
The record opens with Prelude, a shoegaze instrumental anchored by a bassline that walks with quiet authority. With a siren-like wail, guitars swell like a tide against steel pylons, measured yet insistent, pulling the listener into a liminal place before the first lyric arrives.
Comatose steps forward in gauzy layers, taking cues from the My Bloody Valentine and Ride playbook but letting the air breathe between the chords. The lyrics drift between strange wonder and a subtle dread—like glimpsing something in the corner of your eye and deciding not to look again. It’s a song about balancing on the fine line between alertness and surrender, with the band allowing the rhythm to steady the weight of that tension.
With Parts of Me featuring Beatrix Sky, the mood lightens. Tender male and female voices braid together, bright as afternoon sun on glass, while guitars spiral in a haze touched by psychedelia. It feels both loose and precise, a meeting point between The Cure, Pixies, The Dandy Warhols, and Echo & The Bunnymen. The words turn over the idea of sharing life in all its contradictions: shortages and surpluses, joy and trouble, holding onto the idea that love is both a shelter and a mirror.
Sea of Change swings back to the heavier shoegaze strain, with a thick bassline and a waterfall deluge of guitars, recalling Ride and The Veldt’s rich textures. The verses, sung in an Elliott Smith hush, give way to a chorus that surges upward without apology. Lyrically, it’s the push for renewal after a long stall…the need to step out of a low-lit room into air that hasn’t been breathed yet. The repetition is purposeful, hammering the will to move forward until it sticks.
In My Head detonates with a burst of pedal-scorched screeches, the kind that sound ripped from an overloaded effects chain, before snapping into a riff tailor-made for ’90s college radio. Think Flaming Lips reined in and restless, or TV On the Radio with the varnish stripped off, underpinned by a bassline that thumps with unmistakable post-punk intent. The vocals drift in with Slowdive-like haze, carrying lyrics that meander through cosmic analogies and quiet self-interrogation, tumbling over the song’s restless undercurrent. Each refrain returns like a recurring dream—shifting in detail, yet always achingly familiar.
Treading Water leans slightly into post-grunge muscle with this driving bass and jangly guitar that swells into an overdrive, yet is still interlaced with college rock elements of The Ocean Blue and Mid-80s Cure. Lyrically, it’s the sound of holding on without a plan, riding a slow current that could either carry you to shore or out into open water. Brief flashes of comfort punctuate the unease, but the current keeps pulling.
The Crowd collides slowly like waves on the shore, with crashing guitars and a languid daydream vocal, reflecting on being submerged in the collective hum of modern life—voices stacked on voices, signals crossing, noise building. There’s both pride and frustration in trying to stand out while the tide of attention shifts with every second. The lyrics wrestle with the push to speak up and the pull to step back, while the sustained guitars surge forward, standing out with heartfelt passion.
The closing Coda returns to wordless territory, a final instrumental drenched in reverb that flutters like birds in the summer sky, that climbs and arcs like the last light disappearing from a street at dusk. It doesn’t resolve so much as dissolve, leaving the album’s halcyon aftertaste suspended in the air.
Effection is out now on a limited edition purple vinyl. Listen to the album below, and Order Here
It’s this push and pull; restraint giving way to bursts of grandeur, that makes Effection land with force. Waves Crashing understand that music can be both a refuge and a spark. They’ve made a record that doesn’t stay in one mood long enough to get comfortable, but keeps you locked in for the ride.
Put it on, turn it up, and let Olympia’s latest export prove that the Pacific Northwest still knows how to make guitars sing and roar in equal measure.
Waves Crashing have shared the stage with the likes of Bully, Wavves, Ringo Deathstarr, Soft Science, and appeared at a brace of regional festivals.
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