Wednesday put out one of my favorite albums of 2025. I liked Rat Saw God (2023) but it didn’t rise above the tidal wave of shoegaze albums that have been hitting the shelves lately. (Yes, I’m aware that metaphor is dead.) Bleeds was another matter. The songwriting leveled up and the country touches hit just right and made for a truly unique blend.
Bleary Eyed also put out a solid album last year, Easy, which took their sludgy shoegaze and made it a bit more psychedelic and synthy. I was excited to catch them for free. I didn’t like that they just used backing tracks on stage, but I understand the choice, and it did add some texture. Otherwise, they laid down some heavy, thick layers of distortion. Naturally they didn’t quite have the same depth as on record, but that was easily made up for by the sheer weight of their sound. It felt great to move with their rhythms. However, I found the lead singer’s voice bland, and the second vocalist was unfortunately undermiked. The drummer leaned hard on his crashes, but they both fell over a couple songs in. Karly Hartzman ran out to right them, which was sweet. The Buc-ee’s t-shirt was weird, though. I watched Buc-ee’s take over in my years of visiting and living in Texas and I do not appreciate the owner’s right-wing politics. Anyway, I enjoyed the set!
[Bleary Eyed, with Karly Hartzman righting the cymbals.]
Wednesday initially picked up right where Bleary Eyed left off, again playing heavy shoegaze based on lurching, distorted guitars, but with the added touch of most of the lead parts coming from Xandy Chelmis’s pedal and lap steel. I didn’t realize those were his parts! Of course you can use the same sorts of pedals on those instruments, but I’d never seen it done before. But by the time they played “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)”, the country side came out, and I appreciated the shift in style. There was far more shoegaze than country in the set, but I loved the way the two sides bled into each other.
Considering how many end-of-year lists Bleeds ended up on, they unsurprisingly played almost all of it, skipping only “Carolina Murder Suicide”. I suspect I wasn’t the only relatively recent convert in the crowd. They also played several cuts from Rat Saw God and a couple older songs for the more dedicated fans. “Elderberry Wine” and “Townies” both elicited great crowd response.
Karly expressed disappointment at the moshpit the previous night in Hamburg and hoped for a better showing on this night. Maybe she did a better job advocating for it, or maybe the crowd was just in the right mood, but one formed right in front of me and I formed part of the outer ring. They went hard. I rarely can handle being that close to the action, but I didn’t want to give up my perfect spot in the middle of the room, and I was feeding off the energy as much as the band was!
The band played really well. I missed MJ Lenderman, of course, but his touring replacement Spyder (Jake Pugh) was satisfactory. Karly’s voice was in good form, and for once I could hear it exceptionally well. (Maybe my position helped, but I think the sound crew were on point, too.) She said there would not be an encore and that they would just play straight through because the last songs put such a strain on her voice. I mean, they could’ve just done them as an encore, but whatever, it doesn’t matter. Somehow I knew they’d end with “Wasp”, a short, thrashy song that Karly screams through the entirety of. I’d normally find that too aggressive, but in that context, it kind of worked.
I had a great time, and the bands were a great fit together. Well done to whoever organized that!
[Wednesday. Note Karly’s bejeweled guitar as seen in the “Elderberry Wine” video!]
Setlist:
01. Reality TV Argument Bleeds
02. Got Shocked
03. Fate Is…
04. Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)
05. Hot Rotten Grass Smell
06. Candy Breath
07. Phish Pepsi
08. Twin Plagues
09. The Way Love Goes
10. Gary’s II
11. Pick Up That Knife
12. Quarry
13. Elderberry Wine
14. Bitter Everyday
15. Townies
16. Bull Believer
17. Wasp
Scores:
Bleary Eyed: B
Wednesday: A-
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