The musical partnership between Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker has grown stronger over the three terrific albums their band Wussy has released. Their most recent, an eponymously titled record that came out last year, stands as their most complete album. It’s the apex of Cleaver and Walker’s individual formidable songwriting talents, which have been culled into a singular, irrefutable energy. Working together for almost a decade, Walker and Cleaver have solidified a position that reveals their status as another pair of exceptional guy/girl, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife songwriters and performers that seems to constantly deal in the margins of their relationship. Think Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and Richard and Linda Thompson. Yet Walker and Cleaver don’t necessarily see it that way. If Wussy were an autobiographical record, God bless the poor souls whose story it is. Things are amiss in these songs. There’s guilt. There’s suspicion. Trust is quickly dissolving and dissipating. And then, in their starkest moments, there’s resignation. The songs are so earnest, so powerfully written and so well executed that they can’t possibly exist outside of the reality of Cleaver’s and Walker’s romantic relationship. They simply cut too deep and too close to the bone. Wussy play the Beachland Tavern (15711 Waterloo Rd., 216.383.1124) at 9 p.m. Louisville’s the Fervor and locals Good Morning Valentine open. Tickets: $8. — Kurt Hernon
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