Another week, another killer show at the Mercury Lounge! Last week, The Most Serene Republic shifted the scene from SoHo to an oxymoronic hot night in Toronto. Tonight’s installment finds the club converted into a 1930’s Appalachian roadhouse, with a dark and morbid twist.

The night was to include performance from the Royale Brothers, taKKa taKKa, Meowskers, and O’Death. Due to our indulging in the gastronomic delights of Katz’s Deli beforehand, my friends and I walked in at the tail end of taKKa taKKa. I didn’t see enough of them to form any fair opinions, so whatever half-baked ones I did come up with, I will keep to myself.

Next up were Williamsburg Brooklyn based keyboard, bass and drum power-trio called Meowskers. Layering 80’s style synth keyboards over a funk-fluent rhythm section, they helped kick the evening off to our nodding approval. The trebly contralto of the lead singer (on keyboards) laid a counterpoint to the chord spewing, rat-a-tat riff-rock of the fuzz bass. The rhythm section, especially the bassist, were adept at the fine art of playing the spaces between the notes for an overall effect that brought the funk, with a power-punk edge. Well done! I look forward to checking out their recordings and seeing how this band develops over the years. As far as I know, they only have an EP out, and have yet to put out an album.

Soon, however, would bring fervent, nether-worldly howl of O’Death. It’s an odd world of dark spirituality. Like a fever-dream at a 1930’s hoot-nanny as you struggle to keep from falling asleep in a drunken stupor. All the while hugging a jug of powerful moonshine with a large ‘X’ on it. It’s a creepy and surreal nightlife. Welcome to “new weird America”.

Part of the burgeoning Alt-Country scene, you may think of them as the Avetts meet Slayer. The Avett brothers may be more in touch with their feelings, but O’Death raises far more hell.

They preside over mass-exorcisms as their audience contort their faces while shouting the lyrics in unison with the band. They stomp on the floor, furiously waving their hands in the air. Mosh pits erupting in the face of country music? Bet on it!

The band leap out of their chairs with eyes rolling into the back of their skulls, vocal chords straining and the fiddle player whittling his bow down to the stick. The rhythm section passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth, taking deep swigs as if they were drinking water. Oh yeah. These guys are the real deal.

Their punk lineage showed itself in it’s full glory in the final song of the night. It was a rousing cover of the Pixies classic ‘Nimrod’s Son’. Rendered with ukulele, acoustic guitar and fiddle (by this time the fiddle player’s bow was completely shot) it had more frenetic energy and better ‘screamology’ than any recent performance by Frank Black or even the Pixies themselves. The audience, which had been vibrating out of their skins all night completely lost it when the first notes of that song rang out, showing their true colors as Punk rockers with country trappings. The mosh pit exploded with previously unknown fury.

I don’t have much exposure to it (yet) but the alt-country scene as it stands now seems to have the freshness and vibrancy that I imagine the punk scene had in NY in the mid 70’s. Or, perhaps, it has the vitality of the No Wave scene of around the 80’s. It also reminds me clearly of the grunge scene of my youth (as in pre-Nevermind era Nirvana or Superfuzz Bigmuff era Mudhoney).

While that analogy may work to convey the energy one may experience at these shows, it falls apart in one important regard. The “DIY” ethic of those earlier times meant that audiences, while they may have respected those bands, never considered them as gods among us.

Audiences of these alt-country bands that I’ve seen live so far seem to revere them. They seem almost worshipful. I could see where it might be fun to put artists on a pedestal, and lose myself in the cult of personality inevitable in almost all forms of music were I a bit younger and less jaded. But I think I prefer to think of my favorite artists as fellow-jerks who happened to make music that I really really like.