Appearing in the recent video for Wednesday’s Chosen to Deserve clearly provided food for thought for the family of the North Carolina five-piece’s confessional frontwoman, Karly Hartzman. “My dad was like: ‘Isn’t it weird that we’re in a music video about you having sex and doing drugs?’,” she told Pitchfork.
Certainly, a period of teen rebellion (“doing the most drugs, having the most unsafe sexual encounters, and experiencing the most trauma in my life”) has given her plenty of raw material for her band’s southern-accented, 90s alt-rock-style songs. But what lifts them to another level is Hartzman’s eye for the little details that transform the everyday into poignantly observational stories of dead-end small-town America. “You’re capturing a moment that maybe would have gone unappreciated had someone not slowed down their brain and noticed,” she says.
Wednesday was initially a solo project, before Hartzman completed the lineup with guitarist (and partner) Jake Lenderman, lap steel player Xandy Chelmis, bassist Ethan Baechtold and drummer Alan Miller. Their third album proper, the recently released Rat Saw God – featuring songs such as the punchy Bath County and the cathartic climax to epic eight-minute Bull Believer – has attracted glowing reviews. The band play their first UK gigs this week, but already Hartzman is looking forward to documenting Asheville, North Carolina again: “Going on tour makes me more excited to come back [home] and keep writing songs about my world.”
Wednesday play at Yes, Manchester (5 June); the Lexington, London (6th) and Rough Trade, Bristol (7th). Rat Saw God is out now on Dead Oceans
