Seeing Elizabeth Colour Wheel live is like experiencing primal scream therapy. Through wire, circuitry and speaker cone, the quintet dredges up the collective trauma of human experience from its deepest, darkest recesses. Restraint is instrumental to ECW’s heaviness, and the band’s expertise in building tension is matched only by their cathartic bursts of blackened sludge-gaze.
In the midst of the controlled chaos is the singular voice of Lane Shi, who deftly weaves her dynamic vocals through swells of dissonance, brittle twang, fuzzed-out bombast and ear-piercing feedback. Commanding a full spectrum of emotion from delicate, lilting croon to blood-curdling screams, Shi is a force of nature, sonically poised to exorcise our innermost demons.
We caught up with Elizabeth Colour Wheel in May during a northeast tour with Sannhet and Planning For Burial at Blackheart Sound in Manchester, NH. They were joined by Planning For Burial’s Thom Wasluck on vocals for a crushing rendition of the despair-soaked dirge “Whiskey and Wine” from his 2017 album Below the House.