Karly Hartzman
has a voice that sounds like it could have come from a crackly 78
Harry Smith
considered for his
Anthology of American Folk Music
or could be heard pouring from a PA at a club where a scrappy indie rock band is cranking their amps and letting it rip. She sounds decisively Southern, but in more than one way, and she makes the most of this duality on
Wednesday
's 2025 album
Bleeds
, the follow-up to 2023's brilliant
Rat Saw God
. While most of
finds
Hartzman
and her bandmates in fine, noisy form, with skronky guitars adding weight and muscle to her tales of the damaged underbelly of Southern life, there are also several songs where the band eases up on the volume. The vintage country sound of "Elderberry Wine," the determined psychedelic folk of "Phish Pepsi," and a spectral, detourned version of "That's The Way Love Goes" show that they can still make music that cuts deep even at a volume that won't wake the neighbors. The contrast makes a strong case for
's versatility, and shows they have much more up their sleeves than the fuzzy roar of
. However, at the same time, the back and forth between quiet and loud numbers softens the focus of this music, and
doesn't have quite the same cumulative impact as
. That said,
is a ferocious, sometimes deeply moving collection of songs, confirming the strength of the music and revealing
's continued growth as a songwriter. At her best,
captures the Southern Thing as well as either
Patterson Hood
or
William Faulkner
, with a tone that makes room for sun-dappled calm and drunken Saturday-night chaos. She also has a band who can roll with her dynamic shifts with ragged but impressive strength, and guitarist
MJ Lenderman
, steel guitarist
Xandy Chelmis
, bassist
Ethan Baechtold
, and drummer
Alan Miller
know just what to do at every turn, sounding soulful, evocative, and bruising, sometimes all at once.
Alex Farrar
's production and engineering is unobtrusive and intelligent, capturing the group's towering fury and their middle-of-the-night musings with suitable clarity.
is an album that suggests any number of paths
could follow in the future (a future that's an open question as
Lenderman
's solo success means he's no longer touring with them), and all of them should produce music worth hearing; in 2025, they're clearly one of the most powerful and important bands on the American indie scene. ~ Mark Deming