36:51 // September 19, 2025 // Dead Oceans
To this writer, the most fascinating aspect of Karly Hartzman’s songwriting has always been her ability to sound captivated from behind a thousand yard stare. Wednesday’s previous seminal albums, 2021’s Twin Plagues and 2023’s mighty Rat Saw God, showcased her stoic recollections of local fast food joints burning to a crisp (“The Burned Down Dairy Queen”), passive observations of frantic efforts to get an injured friend to the hospital (“Birthday Song”), and her own characterization of herself as a corpse in a living woman’s body (the mesmerizing “Bull Believer”). Luckily for all of us, Hartzman’s dissociative shell shock has never stopped her from churning out gem after gem like the nukes are going to fly before sundown. Wednesday’s latest patchwork of songwriting, the wryly titled Bleeds, is no exception, and meets the group’s previous output at a similar crossroads, occasionally laying down its defenses and leading with a piercing sincerity that sets it apart from anything that preceded it.
Bleeds is distinctly defined by both its artistic perspective and the events that unfolded surrounding its gestation. Hartzman’s vision of “the quintessential ‘Wednesday Creek Rock’ album” outlines an intentional construction of both the record’s warm textures and its jagged edges. On the flip side of the coin, the elephant in the room that was Hartzman and bandmate MJ Lenderman’s breakup lends a rattling emotional intensity to songs that were polished, recorded as demos, and fleshed out prior to the dissolution of the relationship. If anything, it’s a further testament to Hartzman’s ability for her brain to see outside of horrific happenings, while still embodying them with care in other stirring ways.
Wednesday begin pulling from their trademark bag of emotionally contradictory tricks from the opening seconds of pseudo-title track “Reality TV Argument Bleeds”, its heavenly introductory crescendo being carefully stalked by an impending wail of dissonant feedback. The song’s inexorable explosion showcases the group’s unparalleled dynamic range, as well as producer Alex Farrar’s pristine engineering work, with Alan Miller’s steady timekeeping and Hartzman’s drawl slicing efficiently through the tsunami of strings. Right away, Hartzman gets to weaving her web of lyrical magic, illustrating admirable vulnerability while lamenting “broke dick sincerity” and likening trust to picking squirming ticks out of another’s skin. Follow-up track “Townies” gets decidedly more literal with the body horror, centering around the image of crawling into a local dickhead’s body to understand his motives for disrespecting the bodies of others. The narratives themselves are compelling enough on paper, but “Townies” in particular shines because of how its songwriting adds an emphatic whump of impact to Hartzman’s lyricism, particularly with its soaring hook and brilliant tempo shift during its climax.
These two tracks alone are enough to signify the evolution of “Wednesday Creek Rock”, being dominated by howling shoegaze guitars and more live performance-oriented sound compared to Rat Saw God. Previously released singles “Bitter Everyday” and the triumphant “Pick Up That Knife” double down on this phenomenally, with the latter track devolving into a hellacious screamed zenith reminiscent of “Bull Believer”, but through a calmer, more collected pair of eyes. Elsewhere, the rollicking “Phish Pepsi” and delightful closing sequel “Gary’s II” drag listeners through the fertile soil of the band’s country roots (courtesy of Xandy Chelmis’s lap steel chops), while the stunning “Elderberry Wine” presents itself as a surprisingly good choice for a first dance song at a wedding through its heartfelt acoustic lilt. More than any song on the record, “Elderberry Wine” is up front about its allegiance to Bleeds’ core message, namely that the beautiful and worthwhile things in life are also capable of transmuting themselves into an insidious poison. Although the track was written before Hartzman and Lenderman’s breakup, listening to their vocal duet at the conclusion of a track this strong and lyrically poignant is bound to feel venomously good.
While Bleeds demonstrates undeniable artistic growth in a myriad of ways, it is also occasionally poisoned by some of the same pitfalls that plagued their previous two releases. The first, and likely most obvious to many listeners, will occur to them in their recollection of the album’s sequencing. With the exception of the aforementioned “Pick Up That Knife”, the bulk of the record’s highlight moments occur within its first 15-20 minutes, resulting in one of the most top-heavy albums of the year, despite the back half’s above average quality compared to the average 2025 release. Additionally, certain song transitions and inclusions do little to nothing for the album’s flow and overall listening experiences, sometimes threatening to outright derail it. The two main offenders here are “The Way Love Goes”, a track that is lyrically devastating, only for much of its impact to fall short due to its toothless execution and instrumental underdevelopment. To slot it in between the pulse-pounding “Candy Breath” and “Pick Up That Knife” only serves to eliminate what would have been a dynamo of a back-to-back pairing. Slightly later on, “Wasp” flounders in the exact opposite direction by attempting to do entirely too much, especially in the vocal department. It’s also Farrar’s one glaring misstep in the realm of production, and like an actual wasp flying too close to my face, is far too hard on the ears. The negative impact of these tracks is certainly diminished by both of them clocking in at under two minutes, but one could counterargue that their brevity is yet another reason they should have been left on the cutting room floor in the first place.
All things considered, having Wednesday back on their admirably consistent release schedule is one of the greatest musical gifts 2025 has given me. While it regrettably sputters a bit toward its conclusion, Bleeds is genuinely one of the best albums of the year for a solid two thirds of its runtime, and crosses the finish line in a way that would give a solid 95% of other artists a run for their money. In spite of all the emotional gunk that clogged up her heart on the way to the finish line, Hartzman has written yet another grungy, sugary, boot-stompin’ album filled to the brim with lyrical diamonds and memorable instrumental freakouts. Jump on into the creek and enjoy everything Bleeds has to offer; just make sure to check yourself for ticks after.
8/10.Yo Yo, check out these highlight tracks:
-”Townies”
-”Elderberry Wine”
-”Phish Pepsi”
-”Pick Up That Knife”