We’ve (re)rebranded our Artist of the Month series to CoSign, but we’re still dishing the accolade out to an up-and-coming artist or group who is poised for the big time. For March 2023, we’re highlighting Wednesday and their latest LP, Rat Saw God.
You might have already caught wind of the Asheville indie rock outfit Wednesday. Maybe you jumped on board with the low-fi, future underground classic I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone. Maybe it was the self-assured, expertly crafted follow-up Twin Plagues. Hell, maybe it was the Twitter controversy they inadvertently kicked off around artist compensation and South By Southwest 2022.
If somehow after all that you still aren’t yet familiar with the band, you soon will be. With the band’s most realized collection of songs (and Dead Oceans debut!), Rat Saw God, out April 7th, their days as one of indie’s best-kept secrets are numbered.
Lead vocalist Karly Hartzman, guitarist Jake Lenderman, lap steel player Xandy Chelmis, and drummer Alan Miller have fostered a sound unique to their sensibilities, rewriting the indie playbook to include tear-in-you-beer country, shoegaze, Southern rock, noise pop, and much more. Together with Lenderman’s other project, the irresistible MJ Lenderman, they’ve found themselves becoming the face of the burgeoning scene of “countrygaze” — though the name is still up for debate.
“I wouldn’t mind something [other than countrygaze],” Hartzman laughs.
“If it’s a choice between countrygaze and bubblegrunge, I’m taking countrygaze,” Chelmis quickly points out. “I also like how it’s a hominem. I think that’s fun.” (Editor’s Note: Sound it out, you’ll get it.)
But the band’s ethos extends far beyond marrying lap steel with pedal boards big enough to sleep on. Wednesday’s appeal, as cliche as it sounds, derives from the sheer authenticity of the band and its members.
The project’s origins chart back to Hartzman finding inspiration in the artists around her while studying at the University of North Carolina Asheville, picking up the guitar not long before beginning to write and perform with it. Now with Lenderman, Chelmis, and Miller behind her, that urge to create has not only persisted but grown even more intense.
