By John Faussemagne
In March of this year, Wednesday came out the gate with “Elderberry Wine,” the lead single for what would eventually be announced as the album Bleeds. The song itself has a very rootsy feel that can be found in much of Wednesday’s music, as lead singer Karly Hartzman loves to reference her Appalachian roots. The song was a hit within the music world, and for a summer without any real mainstream hits, it felt like the song of the summer.
To start, there is no way to properly review this project without looking into the lore that coincides with it. At the beginning of 2025, after an incredibly successful 2024, MJ Lenderman caught up with GQ before playing a sold-out show at the famous Orange Peel venue in Asheville, North Carolina. In the interview he let the world know that while he would continue to record with Wednesday as the lead guitarist, he and lead singer Karly Hartzman had broken up and he would no longer be touring with the band. Make no mistake, the band Wednesday is the brainchild of Karly; she runs the show and the show runs through her. But the breakup between the lead singer and lead guitarist will definitely make people listen closely to every lyric. There aren’t any outward and focused mentions of the breakup as the two decided not to tell the band of the breakup until after recording was finished, but this does allow Karly to add a bit of subtlety to her storytelling.
The album itself begins with a growing wall of noise that turns into a wonderfully shoegazey guitar. It’s a beautiful way to start an album out loudly before allowing a bit more peace for Karly to sing. “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” allows the loud guitars to act as the chorus while Karly breaks it up with verses in between. There is something sweet and nostalgic about opening the album by talking about picking the ticks off of someone else. It’s equal parts childish and intimate, and honestly, the song feels like the intimate moments in life we take for granted. Going from the closeness of picking ticks off your friends to driving down a dark country road with someone seated next to you.
If “Reality TV Argument Bleeds” is about the intimate moments of life, “Townies” takes on letting the wrong people into those moments. Instead of moments of closeness, there are people leaking nudes and gossiping. The intimacy of the smaller moments we often forget about is overshadowed by the more embarrassing moments that oftentimes stick with us. According to Karly,
“The song “Townies” is about how a young woman’s sexuality, especially when they are first encountering it at a young age, is often weaponized against them in the gossip cycles of a high school. I write from experience, both my own and a dear friend of mine, who had rumors spread about them that could deeply affect or potentially define our social standing.”
“Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On)” follows with possibly the best chorus on the album. Karly takes a line from her friend’s poetry book to build the song around with the now infectious chorus “I wound up here by holding on.” It’s an incredible lyric that perfectly encapsulates a lot of Karly’s songwriting in general. She is often very open about some of the rougher moments from growing up, and instead of pushing through the bad moments, she holds on and lets them pass by her. The final time these lyrics are sung, Karly puts a bit extra into it, which amounts to another unforgettable vocal performance. Right before this, the last verse ends with the lines, “Mounted antlers in the kitchen on a crooked nail / Other killers keep teeth, keep the fingernails.” Karly compares hunters to serial killers who keep parts of their victims as small trophies in the same way hunters hang up their trophy kills. When I first heard the song, for some reason, I couldn’t get the image out of my head of Quinn Ewers’ hunting room, which he showed off at this past draft.
I mean, no one is telling that man horns down with the amount of horns up on his walls… Hearing Karly relate hunters to serial killers makes this photo even creepier than it already was. The band then retools “Phish Pepsi” from a previous project as a quaint little country tune with a sound that is reminiscent of “Out of Time” by Gary Stewart. I would not be surprised to learn the song is inspired by Stewart, whom the band has covered previously. This version reprises a personal favorite lyric of mine, “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / Two things I now wish I had never seen.” The absurdity of a double feature of the grotesque film and the band known for its long sets is a horror beyond comprehension.
As the album sets into its halfway point, “Candy Breath” brings back the noise before “The Way Love Goes” strips it back to the basics with just Karly, a guitar, and a steel guitar. “The Way Love Goes” is a heartbreaking ballad inspired by the 1973 track “That’s the Way Love Goes” by Tommy Rodriguez. The track is poetic in its way of intertwining love and loss, but the second verse, especially, is almost hard to hear.
“And I’m scared to death / There’s women less / Spoiled by your knowing / Newer and much sweeter / Many much more patient / With much more than I can give”
Soon after the breakup of MJ and Karly was announced, MJ began dating Rachel Brown from Water From Your Eyes. The context of this adds an extra layer of heartbreak to the song as Karly’s fear of the person she loves leaving her eventually comes to fruition. Karly ends the song by saying, “That’s the way love goes,” accepting the fact that part of loving is losing.
The third single, “Pick Up That Knife,” exemplifies everything Wednesday does so well in a song. They seamlessly transition between loud sections with distorted guitars and softer sections filled with country-style playing, all while Karly sings beautifully over the band. As the song comes to a crescendo near the end, Karly delivers her best vocal performance of the album. Her delivery not only shows her range, but also her charisma in how she finds little ways to change her vocal inflection. Directly as she stops, we are met with the best guitar playing on the album as a wonderful solo brings us to the end of the song, where all that remains is the distortion from a guitar, which transitions into “Wasp,” a song that caught me a little bit off guard. “Wasp” is a power-violence track fueled by Karly’s screaming. The band really immerses itself into the genre with the extreme pace, harsh screaming, and emotional lyrics.
While many of Wednesday’s songs are based on stories from their past, the final three songs in particular really stand out for this reason. “Bitter Everyday” jumps back into the shoegazey sound with another standout performance by Karly on the chorus. Near the end of the song, while her vocals are being drowned out, Karly tells a story of a homeless person who came up to members of the band to sing to them years ago, before days later they saw her photo on a poster that she’d been wanted for murder. The lived experiences that the members of Wednesday have that they can sing about seem to be limitless.
Once again, we get one last softspoken ballad with “Carolina Murder Suicide,” which, while not a story from their past, came into being when Karly was watching the Murdaugh murders documentaries. The way the song builds is nothing short of perfect. Starting with the somber piano, before adding in a beautifully textured organ around the minute mark, then a dark string section with a droning guitar, before moving into the back half of the song. All the while, Karly once again delivers another phenomenal performance. The organ on this song has slowly become my favorite part of the album and reminds me of “Minha Historia” by Chico Buarque. While a very different song, there is an organ that enters in the latter half of the song that adds so much texture to it, very similar to what Wednesday did here.
The album then comes to a close with “Gary’s II.” A big change from the previous song, which tells the story of an old landlord whom the band knew. It’s a very interesting juxtaposition within the context of the album, going from the underbelly of the evilness that occurs in many of the more “old-money” families in the south to this hoppity little tune about a landlord who’s always down on his luck.
Like many Wednesday projects, the album feels like a love letter to their experience in Asheville and growing up, but the end of a relationship between two key members adds an extra feeling of loss, especially in the context of growing with someone else. While many of the band’s albums always seem to have one to two songs that feel like they could’ve been left off, Bleeds is truly all killer and no filler, and the best album from the band to date. While the band gets ready to embark on a new chapter and a tour without lead guitarist MJ Lenderman, one thing is certain: the band is in good hands. During an incredible year in the music industry where classic albums are seemingly coming out monthly, Wednesday’s Bleeds stands out as a contender for best project this year.
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