The first few moments of Wednesday’s new album, Bleeds, sound like utter hell; a droney wedding of discordant guitars, thundering bass, and death march drumming. The song “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” explodes with a bright shoegazey lead guitar and singer/guitarist Karly Hartzman sings with a reserved twang. For almost 10 years, this North Carolina group has created their unique concoction of alt-country and shoegaze, gaining a bit more notoriety around the release of their album Rat Saw God in 2023 for having MJ Lenderman as their lead guitarist. Now, they have essentially exploded thanks to Hartzman’s raw verse and a breath of noisy instrumentation.
Their last album may have turned a few would-be listeners off, with the secondary opener “Bull Believer” diving into a more 8-minute experimental noise rock realm, but this new one Bleeds does not waste time. Right after “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” we get “Townies,” a cautionary tale about the darkness of small-town life. It starts as a slower acoustic ballad and then again explodes in a shoegaze-y sing-songy chorus. Hartzman’s falsettos and vocal acrobatics here are gorgeous. “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)” might be Wednesday at their best; a droney and sombre guitar rock as Hartzman sings in a longing vibrato, before again, exploding into shoegaze-y, bendy goodness, this time with a neo-gothic edge. This vibe is also on a later track, “Candy Breath.”
There a references to relationship strain, maybe referring to Hartzman and Lenderman’s past romance, and a bit of violence (one song being the minimalist “Carolina Murder Suicide”) all over Bleeds, giving the feeling like a dark and satiric Coen brothers movie. And the dark American slide guitar on songs like “Elderberry Wine” is just too good. I’m here for the old Americana Carolina stories on Bleeds, that I will never truly understand, but that mix and wash of shoegaze and country keeps me coming back for more.
