GENRE: Rock
LABEL: Dead Oceans
REVIEWED: 19th September, 2025
Music Rating: 8.7/10 — Bleeds is a triumph of songwriting, performance, and emotional depth, confirming Wednesday’s status as one of modern indie rock’s most fearless and inventive bands.
Karly Hartzman leads Wednesday with a striking command on Bleeds, her band’s sixth album, delivering a record that is both raw and meticulously crafted. Across twelve tracks, she and her North Carolina band explore the messy intricacies of love, heartbreak, and personal upheaval, transforming pain and chaos into compelling musical storytelling. Hartzman’s lyrics are vivid, unflinching, and often darkly humorous, portraying a world of barroom brawls, murder-suicides, and intimate betrayals, yet threaded throughout is a red vein of emotional vulnerability that makes the songs resonate deeply.
The album opens with “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” setting the tone with tension-filled dynamics and the band’s signature loud-quiet-loud shifts. Guitar strings and lap steel weave through Hartzman’s voice, sometimes scratching like rusty nails, yet perfectly complementing her sharp and evocative imagery. Her vocal growth over two years of relentless touring is evident; she navigates from hauntingly delicate passages to hardcore thrashes like “Wasp,” where her controlled screams convey both aggression and vulnerability. These shifts illustrate her increasing expressiveness and the band’s ability to translate personal and relational turmoil into sound.
Unlike classic break-up albums, Bleeds is less about a single person and more a mosaic of experiences and characters. While MJ Lenderman’s departure and their romantic split inform the emotional center, Hartzman channels heartbreak into broader narratives that explore flawed, resilient, and often violent figures. Songs like “Elderberry Wine” and “Pick Up That Knife” balance despair and dark humor, moving seamlessly from grunge aggression to country-rock catharsis, demonstrating the band’s versatility and Hartzman’s lyrical agility.
Instrumentally, the album is textured and dynamic. The interplay between Xandy Chelmis’ lap steel, Alan Miller’s drums, and Ethan Baechtold’s bass underscores Hartzman’s storytelling, creating tension, release, and catharsis throughout. Tracks like “Carolina Murder Suicide” and “Gary’s II” reflect both her fascination with local lore and her skill at transforming real-life events into gripping, cinematic narratives. This is an album steeped in place and memory, celebrating community, heartbreak, and the messy, unavoidable realities of life.
Bleeds solidifies Wednesday’s evolution from an indie band with cult appeal to a force of narrative-driven, emotionally potent rock. Hartzman’s voice, storytelling, and empathy anchor the album, while the band’s instrumentation elevates every moment. It’s both a testament to personal growth and a vivid snapshot of emotional extremes, capturing the beauty and brutality of human experience in equal measure.
