KOOP TENT • SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 • 4:20PM

With a skill in carving melodies and shreddable moments from rock foundations, Skye Wallace is also an expert at proving herself in every room, at every turn. The guitar-slinging Canadian road warrior has honed a visceral and honest sound, permeating equal parts Courtney Barnett, Patti Smith, and Neil Young’s Marshall Stack era. A live show from Skye and her band is guaranteed to make you let loose and feel something.

New album Terribly Good, Wallace’s Six Shooter Records debut, is a candid self-own – tender in purpose, yet tough in process. Throughout the collection, listeners are there in the room with a view of the mirror while Skye stares down the harder takes and owns her mistakes.

The album is bookended by songs that ride the turbulence of Wallace’s inner voyage through spiralling galaxies. Opener “Tooth & Nail” sets a grungy, determined tone, in which Wallace grits her teeth and turns frustrations into superpowers. That grinding, tenacious spirit is shot through the collection, culminating in album closer “Tear A Piece (Bite Me),” an acerbic double dog dare, a send off and take down of those who keep the gates shut.

There are gentler moments too, with songs like “Everything Is Fine,” the sorcery of transforming uncertainty into confidence (now also released in a superb official acoustic live version) and “Keeper,” ironically a song about letting go. “The Doubt,” the song that most directly names and tames these intrusive thoughts, finds Skye at her darkest moment of feeling unworthy.

Shaped by an upbringing of constant motion, and a career that has seen her tour the country endlessly with respected acts such as Matt Mays and Crown Lands, Wallace is at home with the idea that change, especially in oneself, is a constant.

Riverfact: Skye’s marking her third Riverfest performance. One after party in 2017, the Grasslands Stage in 2019 and now the Koop in 2023.