Having a conversation with God where you promise him you’ll be a better man is probably more blues than country, but nonetheless it is where “Sinner” starts. And it is the line that Koe Wetzel walks all over “The Night Champion.”
These are not the lyrics that country records usually deal in. “This circus isn’t what I thought it was,” he offers on “Circus,” before adding: “When the lights come up, I’m the same sad fuck.” Stick that in your rock’n’roll dream and deal with it.
There is a little of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” video about it: black and white, warts and all, no glamour, no escape. Even if “Circus” was written by Sam Harris of X Ambassadors, and is the only one here Wetzel does not have a hand in, it fits perfectly.
That is this record writ large.
Even the love songs focus on the pain, as “Hurts Like You” proves, so you best believe “When I’m Gone” is not cheery either. “She ain’t gonna miss me when I’m dead, she’s knocking boots with all my friends” might not be the sort of sentiment that troubles the average Hallmark card, but it is stunning all the same.
And that is the thing: these are just brilliant songs. Hard rock, really, in the same way Steve Earle was around “Copperhead Road,” with choruses to die for, as “Time Goes On” underlines.
It is just that they are bleak. Brilliantly and proudly so.
“Dollar And A Dream” takes the balladry deep. “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who she was,” he sings, and you can only imagine the desolation in the hotel room. The guitar work on “The Man” is superb too, adding to the atmosphere as Wetzel puts a brave face on things.
The harmonica comes out on “Nowhere Fast,” giving it a proper singer-songwriter feel, although here he is so bored he is thinking of getting a face tattoo. Which, frankly, is a level of despair most of us can only admire from a safe distance.
The heart of the album is surely “I said the next one was the last one. I was wrong,” the first line on the lugubrious “I’ll Lock Up.” On the press release for this, Wetzel says: “In a lot of ways, it’s closing a chapter, and opening another one for what’s to come for the next 10, 12 years. Here we go.”
That feeling of ending and beginning runs right through “The Night Champion.” The big hit, “Surrounded,” with its 17 million Spotify plays, accepts its fate particularly well, while the last one, “When I Was,” begins “Go on and kill me now,” as if that is the only thing that can ease this. Really, though, it just longs for freedom, and for the girl to come back.
If this really is a new beginning, then “The Night Champion” proves the darkest hour really is before the dawn. It also proves that happy people have no stories.
Absolutely glorious.
RATING 9/10
