On Wednesday’s New Album, Everything ‘Bleeds’ Together
Image by Rina Laby
Weeds growing into a trampoline, mounted antlers, smoking weed out of a Pepsi can, the grocery store on Christmas, gravel driveways, grocery store sushi, and a bar fight. These experiences are all unique to Karly Hartzman, but she writes about them with such familiarity that any listener can absorb Wednesday's latest album, Bleeds.
The band, led by Hartzman, includes Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and MJ Lenderman (guitar). The five-piece draws inspiration from 1990s shoegaze, alt-rock, and country to inform their sound, although the outcome is exclusively their own. Bleeds, released Sept. 19, is their fifth album and the best yet.
Hartzman’s life experiences bleed together to inform her world and subsequently this album. Wednesday is from Asheville, North Carolina, and the album draws not only on obvious country influences, but also the stories that Hartzman and her bandmates have lived through and heard throughout their lives.
The album opens with “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” which serves as the title track. The song introduces the Southern Gothic themes that run throughout the record, beginning with the line, “Pickin’ the ticks off of you.” In what is a seemingly gross lyric, Hartzman finds beauty in the mundane as she embarks upon the album. Accompanied by Lenderman’s distinct guitar style, Hartzman begins to explore what it means to grow up in the South—a place that is marked by an ugly history and nasty people, but is also strangely addictive.
Hartzman features a Q&A section on her website, where she often answers fan submissions. In August, one fan inquired what Hartzman loves about the South. She wrote back: “The simple answer to what I love most about the south is: it is where I am from!!!” As a fellow Southerner, I find myself strongly identifying with her candid answer and the imagery that she includes throughout her lyrics.
The second track of the album, “Townies,” is my early favorite. Evoking narrative country in the style of Lucinda Williams, Hartzman sings in a honey-like voice about a high school relationship. As the more sinister details of the relationship are revealed, like when “He got you in the back of his car / Just your sneakers and your drawers,” the dissonance commences. As Wednesday examines the more ominous aspects of small-town life, they conclude the song on a somber note, expressing that as you grow up and look back on older memories, you often can find that what seemed charming or harmless about a place is not.
Throughout the album, Hartzman draws from her own experiences along with stories from friends and relatives. “Gary’s II,” the last song of the record and a part two to “Gary’s” from the band's sophomore album Twin Plagues, is a retelling of a story of a barfight Hartzman’s friend Gary found himself in. With upbeat guitar and drums, the song evokes a real N.C. bar scene while reinforcing Wednesday’s progressive alt-country sound.
“Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” contains some of my favorite lyrics to ever come from the band. Hartzman sings about a drowned high school athlete who was pulled out of a creek by her friend. The title and chorus, “I wound up here by holdin’ on,” come from another friend's poetry book. Hartzman takes these different stories and collages them together, along with genius lyrics like “Weeds grew into the springs of the trampoline / You saw a pitbull puppy pissin' off a balcony,” and “Mounted antlers in the kitchen on a crooked nail / Other killers keep teeth, keep the fingernails,” to draw listeners in as the band explores a more hardcore sound.
Suddenly, the album takes a personal turn as Hartzman warmly enters “Elderberry Wine.” Written about her bandmate and former partner, Lenderman, the track explores what it means to be in a relationship before you know it’s failing. “There’s a delicate balance that needs to be created, especially in love, for two lives to intersect without poisoning each other,” she wrote when the single was released in May. Recalled again in “Phish Pepsi,” Lenderman and Hartzman’s relationship is pivotal to the album but also to the band’s evolution as a whole. A re-recording from their 2021 EP Guttering, this version of the track is bookended by lively Appalachian-style steel guitar and upbeat drum backings. As Lenderman and Hartzman reminisce on an earlier time in their relationship, they sing together: “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / Two things I now wish I had never seen / We smoked weed out of a Pepsi can / Lyin' around under a Christmas tree.”
With “Candy Breath,” “Bitter Everyday,” and “Pick Up That Knife,” Wednesday rips into familiar themes with a harsher outlook. Again and again, Hartzman sings gripping lyrics that pull listeners into her brain. “Pick Up That Knife” is a song about confrontation and bravery, although it is not the boldest on the album. This self-awareness allows Hartzman to explore more vulnerability, as she repeatedly worries that “they'll meet you outside.” As listeners contemplate her reflection, the intro to “Wasp” suddenly begins. With her vocals on this track, Hartzman appears to be in pain. The most hardcore on the album, “Wasp” showcases Wednesday’s range. They are not limited to any genre, topic, or point of view.
“The Way Love Goes” contains the most apparent Southern twang and, on any other album, would have been a favorite of mine. On an album like Bleeds, though, the classic country break-up song showcases an important sound for the band, but doesn't excite. “Caroline Murder Suicide,” also a more mellow track, retells the story of a broken family. “I'd seen him swing his wrapped up hands at / The bag in the garage / And I'd heard him shooting bottles / Off the top of a wooden box,” Hartzman sings about a man who killed his family and then himself. Murder-suicide is one of the most tragic crimes I can think of, and Wednesday does not shy away from the extremity of the situation. Even the band's more delicate, subdued songs are uniquely their own; I cannot think of any apt comparisons for either of these tracks.
With “Bleeds,” Wednesday cements their sound as uniquely Ashevillian –a perfect mix of alternative, country, indie, rock, and shoegaze –all bleeding into one another.