Living Waters is the fifth full-length record from E, a band with members based in Boston, MA (Thalia Zedek, guitar-bass, and Ernie Kim, drums) and Boulder, CO (Jason Sanford, guitar, electronic devices). The sound is piledriver heavy and the playing spring-action adept, qualities appropriate for this power trio cut from the cloth of noise rock. 35 years ago, E would’ve fit right in on the Touch and Go Records’ roster, but in 2024 their latest is pressed onto vinyl by the Czech label Silver Rocket. Domestically, it’s self-released via Bandcamp, available now.
The heavyweight punch of E’s sound is impressive given that this is Kim’s full-length debut with the band, replacing Gavin McCarthy. On opener “(Fully) Remote” the sound is pummeling yet elastic, precise without faltering into the overly tight. There is strength through unity; Sanford sings lead with a sense of calm while Zedek wails the choruses, and their combined guitars reach far beyond the standard noise rock approach.
For this album, Zedek has added an extra pickup to her guitar and is running it through a separate pedal chain and octave shifter plugged into a bass amp. This effectively allows her to add guitar and bass to E’s scheme at the same time (rather than multi-tracking one of the two later, which lacks spontaneity). Additionally, Sanford continues to be a wiz with electronic devices in service of harnessing guitar distortion and has redesigned his monosequencer, an apparatus (now all-analog) that triggers bass pulses through a stomp box (leaning again into spontaneity).
Sanford’s guitar is also one he built himself, described as a steel-guitar, though he straps it on like a standard electric, dishing out slide scorch that, as said, lands firmly in the noise rock realm; there are no nods to the blues tradition here. Sanford is heard loud and clear in “(Fully) Remote,” but neither Kim nor Zedek take a back seat role as the band fully clicks.