WEDNESDAY

Can a single person be one of rock’s most visceral screamers, one of country’s most affecting singers, and one of the most vivid and exacting songwriters to emerge from the American South this century? The existence of Wednesday founder Karly Hartzman offers an emphatic yes. Hartzman grew up in Greensboro, N.C., a mid-sized city with a rich past but not generally noted for its cultural present. Hartzman, though, collected striking memories from that supposedly humdrum place the way some people save receipts. She slowly began funneling them into songs after moving to Asheville for college, learning guitar there, and starting Wednesday a decade ago. For a long time, Wednesday seemed like another art project for Hartzman, a true polyglot who sews, draws, and writes—members drifting in and out, misfits mixing covers and originals in mountain-town dives.

But soon after the pandemic, when Hartzman and a circle of close friends lived and read and worked in a mountain holler, it started to become clear that Wednesday is a generationally great rock band. Starting with 2021’s Twin Plagues but reaching new levels of tension and release on 2023’s Rat Saw God, Wednesday found unexpected sweet spots among hardcore, country, shoegaze, and prime ’90s indie rock. The rhythm section was incredibly versatile; the guitarists (including MJ Lenderman and steel subverter Xandy Chelmis) had seemingly absorbed an encyclopedic amount of rock history only to let it out in unexpected permutations. They made a masterpiece with 2025’s Bleeds, leaning harder in every direction until they inevitably found riveting intersections where country became rock became noise. And Hartzman’s pen only sharpens, whether she’s describing the sting of heartache or classism or perfectly capturing the surreal characters that shape your life if you stick around the South long enough. Already a mighty and fascinating band, Wednesday seems, too, to just be getting started.