Hi, everyone. Stripethony Shirttano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Wednesday album, Bleeds.

Here we have the sixth full-length LP from North Carolina rock band Wednesday, which was released through Dead Oceans, recorded at Drop of Sun in Asheville, and produced by Alex Farrar, who returns after working with the band on a few of their previous albums, too.

Also worth noting is that long-time member guitarist and songwriter Mr. MJ Lenderman is no longer going to be a part of the band's touring apparatus, though he will still remain a full member when it comes to writing and studio work, and that sort of thing; that change comes in part most likely due to Lenderman's growing solo career.

In addition to that, he and frontwoman Karly Hartzman had recently broken up, too. Not the sort of thing I'd typically like to make a big deal of in a review, but such a shift in group dynamics would certainly be enough to completely sink some bands. But apparently not Wednesday, as Karly and company very much seem focused on continuing to grow the band's audience after the positive reception of their last LP, Rat Saw God. A record that didn't necessarily blow me away, personally. As lately, I do tend to hear a lot of albums that give this raw and rustic combination of country and '90s alt-rock aesthetics.

But I think Bleeds showcases exactly why Wednesday may be the most important band in this lane right now. Because, at least to me, this is very apparent right from the opening track, "Reality TV Argument Bleeds". A song that, through its guitar tones, brings instantaneously this classic noisy, nasty, grungy, slacker sound with touches of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Weezer, and Hole.

Not new influences to revive these days on the rock scene by any means. But at least Wednesday isn't afraid to relive them with some guitar sounds and riffs that actually have some snarl to them. Some bite, wailing leads that might actually be overheard by a passerby, were you playing this out in the open?, because it's not merely meant to be a '90s pastiche wallpaper bullshit.

I would say Karly's vocals actually confront you with the emotion of the song, too. Because, as she says, "Walk over the wet boards of a wooden bridge / When I don't feel like bein' comforted." You actually hear the pent-up rage in her voice.

Now, the first leg of this record really brings some of the best songwriting I have heard on any Wednesday song thus far to date, like on the song "Townies", where once again we hear more alt-rock vibes. But this time, they really come through with a country flair. I love the contrast between the nice pedal steel leads and the fuzz rock guitars.

But it's really the lyrics on this track that stand out to me, as they are very much about the weird and terrible connections that you may make growing up in small-town America. In the tiniest of places where things like cancel culture don't quite translate because maybe some guy who you knew as a drug dealer shared your nudes around, and you never really got the opportunity to chew him out over it because he died.

The song "Wound Up Here" has a similar backdrop of small-town culture and destitution, and it's very much about surviving it while simultaneously looking back on those who met their fate being swallowed up in its jaws. I also want to note that Karly's vocals reach this fever pitch of intensity at the very end of the track, as do the guitars, which just makes for one of the best finishes here.

Things kind of get toned down for "Elderberry Wine", but it's no matter because it's just a great, straightforward country single. In fact, I love how Karly's vocals work both in the context of these grungy underground rock tunes, but also these dejected country croons.

But then, following this, I do think the record hits a bit of a lull at the midpoint. "Phish Pepsi" feels like this weird Beck-inspired combination of rock and country with looping beats and very relaxed, doubled-up male/female vocals. The lyrics on the song are legitimately hilarious, especially on the bar in regards to Phish and The Human Centipede. Though still, I do find the song to be one note in comparison with other highlights here.

The song "Candy Breath" features a lot of standout, gnarly guitar heroism, but those riffs, for the most part, very much do overshadow the so-so song underneath them.

And the track "The Way Love Goes", I thought, was a little bit too uneventful structurally. I mean, I don't mind an acoustic moment at this point on the record, and I do think the track does a great job of painting a picture of a love that loses its luster over time very tragically. But still, I did wish the whole thing had just developed further.

Miraculously, things do pick up on the album with "Pick Up That Knife", which features one of the most emotionally stunning vocal performances from Karly. Similar to "Wound Up Here", the track just has this incredible combination of alt-rock and country and an amazing finish to boot. Especially when you consider how quickly this track transitions into "Wasp", which is like this grunge punk beat down that is in and out in under 90 seconds. And again, just feels like an extension of the previous track, and it's just an explosive highlight.

"Bitter Everyday" is a very Dinosaur Jr.-inspired moment, whose lyrics once again give us this grim, colorful brand of storytelling that Karly seems to specialize in so well. "A street juggalo sang us a sweet song on the porch / When we livеd downtown and whoever was near would come on up / Next week, we saw her on a poster stapled to a pole / She killed a guy and left the body laying by the road." That's only the kind of magic you're getting on a Wednesday record, honestly.

As far as the final moments on the album are concerned, I could take them or leave them. "Carolina Murder Suicide"'s droney, slow-moving instrumentation builds up a lot of tension but offers very little in the way of release.

And "Gary's II" is a follow-up to a character portrait that we heard years ago on the band's Twin Plagues record in 2021. Essentially, talking about this guy in his thirties with fake teeth. And while "Gary's II" here doesn't exactly tell us much we didn't know already, given the previous "Gary" song, I do feel like the song works as an overall metaphor for the album itself – the sort of economic and societal degradation and rot that a lot of the songs on here speak to, given that Gary, in a lot of ways, is this flawed everyman with seemingly nice teeth, but those teeth are actually fake. And then after this fact is brought up, the song just ends.

So it is just a shockingly abrupt finish, but still adds to this overall narrative that while some things may look functional or presentable on the surface, there may actually be problems and trauma and deeper issues beyond that surface level. I wish there were more to this song and the album itself, but honestly, finishing things off in this way isn't necessarily the most un-Wednesday thing in the world, as their catalog thus far very much feels more like an ongoing conversation than a segmented series of chunks or chapters in an overall body of work.

And the band, you know, is just progressively making improvements and changes as they move along. And I feel like when you take the quality of the songwriting, the singing, the guitar work, and the production on this record, and compare it to that of the work that they were putting out a few albums ago, you most definitely hear a very clear improvement on all fronts.

Which makes this, in my opinion, the most enjoyable Wednesday album thus far, even if there were a handful of tracks around the middle and toward the end that I think could have used some more punch and some more structure, which is why I'm feeling a strong 7 on this LP.

Anthony Fantano, Wednesday, Forever.