Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman hit the midpoint of “Wristwatch” when a voice from the Third Man Records’ Blue Room crowd tries to jump in. “I got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome,” Lenderman sings, and the enthusiastic fan warbles along on the last two words—loud enough to be caught on the 1955 Scully lathe. Manning Fireworks had dropped just two weeks prior, and buzz around Lenderman’s life—including his recent breakup with Hartzman—was still crashing like tidal waves. Fans are desperate for connection in this intimate setting, eager to participate.
But the anticipated sing-along never materializes. The “Himbo Dome” moment lands as nothing more than a lyric over an electric guitar strum—anticlimactic, muted, ordinary. That fleeting failure highlights the limitations of Live at Third Man Records. Hartzman and Lenderman strip their songs down to the barest bones, removing the defining textures of Wednesday and the Wind: crunching guitars, weeping pedal steel, pounding drums. In place of that richness, there’s mostly empty space.
Some moments shimmer with ragged glory—tangled guitars on “She’s Leaving You,” voices drifting in different directions on “TLC Cage Match,” Hartzman stretching the English on “fuckin’” in “Feast of Snakes.” But the duo runs each number at roughly the same plodding tempo, most songs slowly draining energy. Watching it unfold is like observing a tire deflate. It’s jarring and disappointing, given that Hartzman and Lenderman are two of the most distinctive songwriters working today, merging left-of-center influences—Vic Chesnutt, Drive-By Truckers, John Prine—into narratives rife with skewed imagery and complex emotional landscapes.
Lenderman favors sly, evasive turns of phrase, often speaking in second person that reads like accusation, even when he’s talking to himself. Hartzman is more confessional, tracing multilayered, intricate storylines in first person, much like Mike Cooley of the Truckers. Both wield language to temper intense pathos with humor. Their Blue Room set opens with 2018’s “How Do You Let the Love Into the Heart That Isn’t Split Wide Open,” a nearly one-minute rumination on its own unwieldy title. In its original form, it’s a clever meta-commentary on love songs; here, it’s over before it lands, serving less as a statement and more as an awkward clearing of throats.
The set draws selectively from the darker corners of their catalogs: Wednesday cuts, Lenderman solo tracks, two songs from 2021’s Guttering, a Harry Crews-inspired single, and selections from Manning Fireworks and Rat Saw God. That vault-clearing approach imbues the album with a sense of finality, one the music itself can’t quite support.
Context adds another layer of complexity. Hartzman and Lenderman had ended their six-year romantic relationship six months prior, a split finalized in a Kyoto bar. Hartzman carried that heartache into Wednesday’s Bleeds, her account of recording “That’s the Way Love Goes” as raw as the song itself. By the time of the Blue Room show, the breakup was publicly known. The tension hangs over the performance, but the set reveals nothing of it.
There’s a curious self-consciousness throughout, as if both have learned to guard themselves onstage. When Hartzman promises to play a few more numbers after recording ends, she adds, “I’ma talk probably a lot more when I know it’s not going to be permanent.” That’s likely the more compelling performance—the one that exists off the record, unburdened, where the songs can breathe and the audience can finally sing along.
Live at Third Man Records captures two exceptional songwriters stripped to essentials, but the intimacy feels strangely heavy, and the promise of participation, of collective release, never arrives.
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