Wednesday Bleeds Indie Exclusive LP (Eco Mix Color Vinyl)

Brick & Mortar/Indie Retail Exclusive! Can only ship to USA address!

Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums of 2025 - Rated 8/100!
Pitchfork The 50 Best Albums of 2025 - Rated 6/50!

TAS Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the February 2026 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Can a self-portrait be a collage? Can empathy be autobiographical? What's the point of living if we're not trying to understand all the horror and humor that surrounds everything? These are a few of the questions lurking under the bleachers of Wednesday's 2025 album Bleeds, an intoxicating collection of narrative-heavy Southern rock that—like many of the most arresting passages from the North Carolina band's highlight reel so far—thoughtfully explores the vivid link between curiosity and confession.

Bleeds is not only the best Wednesday record—it's also the most Wednesday record, a patchwork-style triumph of literary allusions and outlaw grit, of place-based poetry and hair-raising noise. Karly Hartzman—founder, frontwoman, and primary lyricist—credits Wednesday's tightened grasp on their own identity to time spent collaborating on previous albums, plus a tour schedule that's been both rewarding and relentless.

"Bleeds is the spiritual successor to Rat Saw God, and I think the quintessential 'Wednesday Creek Rock' album," Hartzman said, articulating satisfaction with the ways her band has sharpened its trademark sound, how they've refined the formula that makes them one of the most interesting rock bands of their generation. "This is what Wednesday songs are supposed to sound like," she said. "We've devoted a lot of our lives to figuring this out—and I feel like we did."

Just like Rat Saw God, one of the defining rock & roll records of the 2020s so far, Bleeds came together at Drop of Sun in Asheville and was produced by Alex Farrar, who's been recording the band since Twin Plagues. Hartzman again brought demos to the studio, where she and her bandmates—Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake "M.J." Lenderman (guitar)—worked as a team to bulk-up the compositions with the exact right amounts of country truth-telling, indie-pop hooks, and noisy sludge. More than ever, the precise proportions were steered by the lyricism—not only its tone or subject matter, but also the actual sound of the words, as well as Hartzman's masterfully subjective approach to detail selection.

Every image or scene is filtered through Hartzman's agile, writerly brain. The particulars deemed essential all contain revelations about Hartzman's specific obsessions and vulnerabilities, about the fragmented way she processes the world. Maybe sometimes the best way to locate truth or pain or dignity within your own life story, Bleeds suggests, is by crawling into someone else's.

Augmenters of twang, ache, and forthright Southern storytelling... Karly Hartzman's daring songwriting anchors Wednesday's gnarled, dreamlike sound.

Following up their breakout 2023 album Rat Saw God, Asheville rockers Wednesday return with Bleeds, another record that sounds like nothing else. Using pedal-steel, fuzzed out distortion, yodels, and the occasional scream, they continue to define the new genre affectionately deemed 'y'allternative.' Bleeds is full of extremes but it never strays far from lead singer Karly Hartzman's vision, her singular voice tying the disparate parts together like a quilt. Hartzman's incredible hyper-realistic lyrics paired with catchy melodies and her raspy twang speak to an expanse of honest-to-life moments. The truths she sings about never feel confessional; instead, it's an observation of humanity and doubly an unflinching snapshot of small-town, southern/Appalachian American life; the good, the ugly, the nasty, the uncomfortable and inevitable, in a way only Hartzman could... Bleeds is a record that makes itself known and is hard to forget, and Karly Hartzman continues to prove she's one of the best and brightest we've got.