On Friday, September 19th, Asheville quintet Wednesday released Bleeds. The album came as a follow up to the vivid Rat Saw God. Similar to Rat Saw God, Bleeds is almost twelve short stories collected into an album.
Frontwoman Karly Hartzman’s full wails bring her lyrics to life. “You saw a pitbull puppy pissing off a balcony,” she sings, her voice creating a tension that brings in a crescendo of hazy gazey guitar (“Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)”). Each song is different from the last. Utopian slices-of-life on “Elderberry Wine,” adolescent ghostly nostalgia on “Townies”, fretful love confessions on “The Way Love Goes,” and puking in the pit on “Pick Up That Knife.”
One throughline is maintained, though. Hartzman’s utter love of the American South. The porch, the country, the trucks, the lake. These images, when listed, read as cliché to me. But on Bleeds they become morsels of invention. I cannot get enough!
Invitation to Hartzman’s home state through the fog of memory is magnetic. “The house collapsed/But the fire kept on burning at the scraps/And I wondered if grief could break you in half” (“Carolina Murder Suicide”). The devotional, painful nostalgia of Bleeds is refreshing.
While making my way through the Wednesday discography I spent some time on their YouTube channel. “Rat Bastards of Haw Creek” is a short documentary a friend of the band made. Observing the band’s musical process was fascinating, but I was more drawn to the other things they explored. MJ Lenderman, guitarist, spent the video fishing. Hartzman worked on custom Wednesday merch in her textile cave/bedroom/doll display.
This glimpse makes Bleeds that much sharper. Bleeds is lean and sinewy. It is skinned and personal with zero waste. “Rat Bastards of Haw Creek” shows all the stuff that could be piled on but instead informs a tight project. The land that backdrops the video is retold in snippets on Bleeds, like on “Gary’s II”. Rather than the slow drawl one might expect from a pointedly southern project, Hartzman delivers relentless narrative.
The images Wednesday creates have been bouncing around my head all weekend. Listening to the album is like reading a diary, thinking about it is like remembering a dream. This album is sincere, interesting, and sounds really great. If you share my sentiment, you can see Wednesday this November 22nd in DC.
Favorite track: “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)”
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By Quinn Bolster ‘28
Image Source: Wednesday via Bandcamp
