Wednesday Pushes Boundaries

_{Asheville-born band and global star Wednesday}

A very specific and definitive sound that’s been echoing out of the Blue Ridge Mountains for the last decade is finally being heard all over the world. These hooky, squirrelly vocals sling wry, sardonic lyrics over slinky pedal steel lines that weave their way across gritty, distorted, verbed-out guitars and thrashing drums. The sound is a little bit country, a little bit shoegaze, and as hazy as the Smoky Mountains from which it hails. It’s the music of Wednesday, the Asheville critics’ darling that has been topping international best-of lists with every new release, and if you haven’t yet heard these tunes, it’s time.

Wednesday originally formed in 2017 as a solo project of Karly Hartzman, who quickly picked up collaborators to form the band, including drummer Alan Miller and pedal steel guitarist Xandy Chelmis. Guitarist MJ Lenderman joined in 2020 following a stint as the drummer for indie-pop maven Indigo De Souza. After the pandemic scrapped the tour for Wednesday’s second full-length album, I Was Trying to Describe You To Someone, the group recorded and released Twin Plagues, which they rode to South By Southwest in 2022. By mid-2023, they’d picked up bassist Ethan Baechtold and were touring Europe and Asia.

While Lenderman has since stepped back from touring with Wednesday to focus on his solo career, he’s still recording with the band, including their sixth album, released last fall with NPR proclaiming, “Wednesday’s Bleeds might be the rock album of the year.” The single “Elderberry Wine” even landed at number 11 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative chart. Whether this is just the start of Wednesday’s rise or the peak of the wave, it is nice to see the music of Western North Carolina riding global airwaves. www.wednesday.band