Nothing ever happens in Perth on Tuesdays nights. Perth’s Tuesday ennui is legendary. Even in Tasmania they tell touring bands “you won’t get them (Perth) to mosh on a Tuesday.”
But there is hope. Music is a time machine. Think about a song that “brings back memories”. That first kiss at The Elks, the fight at Dave Warner from the Suburbs or the day your dog died and you played Bury Me Deep in Love. The music of those moments can transport you back there. But can music move you forward in time? Well if on a Tuesday night in Perth you went to see Wednesday play at the Rechabite, wouldn’t that be a form of time travel?
Wednesday (and intertwined support MJ ‘Jake’ Lenderman) from Asheville North Carolina are hot musical property. While Taylor Swift is playing in sell-out stadiums across Australia, the no less phenomenal Karly Hartzman is powering Wednesday across our land. Both are from the Tennessee/North Carolina tobacco belt. They just took different forks in the road.
Karly starts with a cover of the Eddie Bricknell folk classic Ghost of a Dog. It starts true to the original enhanced with beautiful lap steel before midway through the band and Karly’s vocals crash on through. Hot Rotten Grass Smell is not just a fantastic song title. It’s a mission statement, being the opening song from 2022’s album of the year Rat Saw God. It sets the bar high for the night with Karly’s vocals hitting her signature warbling yodel over a jarring wall of sound and melancholy lap steel guitar.
Rat Saw God is an opus about the minutiae of adolescent America. Dark restless moments of insecurity mixed with the wry humour of Karly’s graphic lyrics. Musically it folds the crushing weight of alt-metal and the timeless melancholy of country into a haunted vision of adolescence.
It’s an album worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead in song. When Karly introduces Chosen To Deserve as their country song, well that’s the prize right there! And then the moshing starts and Tuesday has become a Wednesday in Perth.
The band end with Bull Believer a slow build of a song which transforms into a screaming rant over relentless squealing writhing guitars. Pig squealingly good. There is no encore. There could never be an encore after such a catharsis.
Tonight the Song List Rat SAW GOD!
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