Ken Pomeroy will break your heart. She’ll do it with a single line––sometimes, just one word. The pain begins as an empathetic ache. Then, as Pomeroy sings her stories, you begin to see yourself in her hurt and hope. And you realize: We’re in this together.

Pomeroy’s outstretched hand to the wounded manifests as startlingly good songs. Her soprano is comforting––almost sweet––but perhaps most powerful delivering a devastating line. A deft guitarist, she opts for beds of rootsy strings that can soothe or haunt. But it’s her writing that really shines and stings. “Writing was and is the only way I can fully express an emotion and feel like I got it out,” she says. “I feel like once I get it out into a song, I don’t have to worry about it anymore. If it’s a traumatic thing that happened, I kind of act as if it’s gone.”

Pomeroy creates a wild but safe space of her own––a space that, like 22-year-old Pomeroy herself, is brutally honest, proudly Native American, and undeniably brilliant.

People have noticed. Pomeroy’s “Wall of Death” made its way onto the Twisters soundtrack, while Hulu’s Reservation Dogs featured her soul-mining gem, “Cicadas.” Tour dates with Lukas Nelson, Iron &