BLACK VINYL Karly Hartzman has a voice that sounds like it could have come from a crackly 78 Harry Smith considered for his Anthology of American Folk Music or could be heard pouring from a PA at a club where a scrappy indie rock band is cranking their amps and letting it rip. She sounds decisively Southern, but in more than one way, and she makes the most of this duality on Wednesday's 2025 album Bleeds, the follow-up to 2023's brilliant Rat Saw God. While most of Bleeds finds Hartzman and her bandmates in fine, noisy form, with skronky guitars adding weight and muscle to her tales of the damaged underbelly of Southern life, there are also several songs where the band eases up on the volume. The vintage country sound of "Elderberry Wine," the determined psychedelic folk of "Phish Pepsi," and a spectral, detourned version of "That's The Way Love Goes" show that they can still make music that cuts deep even at a volume that won't wake the neighbors. The contrast makes a strong case for Wednesday's versatility, and shows they have much more up their sleeves than the fuzzy roar of Rat Saw God. However, at the same time, the back and forth between quiet and loud numbers softens the focus of this music, and Bleeds doesn't have quite the same cumulative impact as Rat Saw God. That said, Bleeds is a ferocious, sometimes deeply moving collection of songs, confirming the strength of the music and revealing Hartzman's continued growth as a songwriter. At her best, Hartzman captures the Southern Thing as well as either Patterson Hood or William Faulkner, with a tone that makes room for sun-dappled calm and drunken Saturday-night chaos. She also has a band who can roll with her dynamic shifts with ragged but impressive strength, and guitarist MJ Lenderman, steel guitarist Xandy Chelmis, bassist Ethan Baechtold, and drummer Alan Miller know just what to do at every turn, sounding soulful, evocative, and bruising, sometimes all at once. Alex Farrar's production and engineering is unobtrusive and intelligent, capturing the group's towering fury and their middle-of-the-night musings with suitable clarity. Bleeds is an album that suggests any number of paths Wednesday could follow in the future (a future that's an open question as Lenderman's solo success means he's no longer touring with them), and all of them should produce music worth hearing; in 2025, they're clearly one of the most powerful and important bands on the American indie scene. A1 Reality TV Argument Bleeds 3:02A2 Townies 3:15A3 Wound Up Here (By Holdin On) 3:28A4 Elderberry Wine 3:35A5 Phish Pepsi 2:29A6 Candy Breath 2:52B1 The Way Love Goes 1:56B2 Pick Up That Knife 4:21B3 Wasp 1:26B4 Bitter Everyday 3:21B5 Carolina Murder Suicide 4:24B6 Gary's II 2:35
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