"Mere feet away was Lindsey Buckingham, the man she'd written it about nearly 40 years prior, harmonizing on the chorus. Such feats of sustained annihilation are, by definition, tenuous—Buckingham himself has quit Fleetwood Mac twice, once of his own volition and once of Nicks'—so it wasn't entirely surprising when, in a GQ profile earlier this year, MJ Lenderman confessed that a recent Wednesday show had been his last with the band."
"On the barnburning, joyriding "Chosen to Deserve," from Wednesday's 2023 breakthrough Rat Saw God, Hartzman took account of her youthful misdeeds, "just so you know what you signed up for, what you're dealing with." The glow of love makes shadow puppets of shame, guilt, and self-recrimination, only for new fears to take their place. What if you wake up one day and realize I'm not everything you thought I was?"
Karly Hartzman and her band Wednesday deliver Bleeds, a sixth album of 12 tracks that pairs careful songwriting with coiled, visceral performances. The record threads a bright red yarn of heartbreak through songs populated by bar brawls, murder-suicides, Afrin addictions, and serial killers, creating richly fetid narratives that still ache with vulnerability. Guitar strings and lap steel snag Hartzman's words like rusty nails, roughening the emotional edges. Band dynamics shifted after an exhaustive 2024 and MJ Lenderman's departure following a mutual break with Hartzman, adding real-life rupture to the album's themes.
Read at Pitchfork
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