Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Rock – April 7, 2023 – 10 songs, 37 mins
LUNDI
Rarely do you ever understand the magnitude of a moment you’re in until it’s long over. Surely Wednesday, this weeks band on the review docket, won’t point to Primavera’s set on the Amazon Stage as a career defining moment, but for each and every listener there, TSR included, it cemented the fact this band gives zero fucks and are here to do this their own way no matter the outcome. On their fifth album, Rat Saw God, they see themselves at the forefront of a rock revival, something they never asked for but were just too good to ignore.
Wednesday hail from the Deep South, which greatly influences their musical composition. While shoegaze and indie styles carry the weight of their overall sound there are hints of folk, blues, and Americana scattered throughout. MJ Lenderman leads the way with a sharp distorted guitar while the collection of Karly Hartzman (vocal, guitar), Xandy Chelmis (lap steel), Margo Schultz (bass) and Alan Miller (drums) combine to create an output that feels fresh and unique in the saturated copycat rock industry.
On the flip side, the lyrics are anything but celebratory of the southern lifestyle. Wednesday say thanks for the musical inspiration and turn around and flip off the regressive lifestyle which they grew up in. What results is a life affirming sprawling album that shifts and pivots throughout. Hartzman is unapologetic with the life she’s lived and is here to tell the winding descriptive stories of overdoses, relationship failures and a never ending existential dread.
The total collective output is a band that can seemingly do no wrong. While it can feel like it’s the pinnacle effort of a veteran band five albums in, it can just as easily feel like they’re only getting started.
Now my style is to avoid negatives on high rated albums but in this case it’s impossible to ignore that the vocal production on Rat Saw God is subject to missing the mark. When transitioning from a drawn out lyric to the next note, Hartzman often sounds like she’s singing through her teeth with a southern drawl and straining through the task, which becomes utterly unforgivable after witnessing her live vocal performance. Karly is a high octane emotional performer who puts shame to the final record vocal. Producer Alex Farrar could have driven the distortion up to shoegaze levels with no deterrent or let her raw voice shine but he instead used his production magic and left her helpless in the middle. The result is a whiney and waning delivery directly on top of the bands output. It’s thankfully a minor blip due to its rate of occurrence but there is no doubt it will detract casual music listeners from this incredible band. With a polished vocal Rat Saw God is running away with album of the year.
Guitar driven music is having a musical renaissance of sorts that’s led by those bands pushing the boundaries. Wednesday do everything and more on their fifth studio album Rat Saw God. It’s a musical triumph in a career we can only hope is just getting started.
Overall Rating: 8.3/10
Favourite Song: Turkey Vultures
ROZ
“Hey I remember you, you made us dinner one night last time we were on tour, you’re awesome, right on!” frontwoman Karly Hartzman proclaims between songs during her band's performance at the Primavera Sound music festival, pointing to a man in the front of the crowd. This statement - along with many other casual moments woven throughout - displaying the youthful energy and excitement shown when a new band finally breaks into the mainstream. This week's review is an interesting one in the fact that it is fresh off of the TSR crew seeing this band live and in person only one month ago. While the Asheville, North Carolina group made a strong impression on the three of us at the Amazon Music stage that day, in standard Too Sweet Reviews fashion their latest studio effort still needed to be given the proper time and a proper review. This week's album is Rat Saw God by the band Wednesday.
Rat Saw God at its core is very much a rock album with hard, thrashing rock riffs, distorted guitar pedal effects and hard hitting drums being a mainstay from top to bottom. “Finish him”, Ms. Harztman squeezes out during the closing of Bull Believer before letting out a primal scream that lasts for over a full minute, an act that impresses me just as much now as it did when she did it in front of us at Primavera. This leads into my next point - Hartzmans use of raw emotional energy throughout Rat Saw God adds that extra layer of depth that I believe allows for a stronger connection between listener and artist; she isn’t just singing to you, she is pushing out everything she physically can in an act of total desperation. Moments such as the ones from Bull Believer are juxtaposed by the slower, bluegrass infused efforts such as Formula One and Chosen to Deserve, with the former including backing vocals from talented guitarist and bandmate MJ Lendermen.
The album overall finds the perfect balance between the heavy and the light with some songs pushing the mix into the red and borderline clipping the audio while others sway you into an almost morbid type of relaxation. I use the term morbid because when you really think about what kind of stories are unfurling throughout each song, a lot of them are not exactly pleasant. Rat Saw God succeeds in its goal of vividly painting the picture of a coming-of-age story throughout rural America, with all of the dark subjects and poor decisions that one can expect to see through the eyes of crazy teenagers with very little to keep themselves entertained. Real life names are used and personal anecdotes are many, and while it is impossible to tell whether the stories themselves are real or not it really does elevate Harztman’s writing.
Rat Saw God combines the band's youthful experiences with talented musicianship beyond their years. Wednesday has all of the ingredients that guarantee a promising future and to top if off their live show is a can’t-miss.
Overall Rating: 8.3/10
Favourite Song: Bath County
REID
Hot rotten grass smell.
“Fuck all y’all” down the wishing well.
That’s how Rat Saw God opens and I felt like doing the same. When I first threw on this album a couple months ago, it piqued my interest immediately. Lucky for TSR, the indie rock quintet from North Carolina were in the Saturday small font for Primavera. We put the potential review on hold and penciled in the show.
Wednesday kicked off one of, if not the best, music days of my life. I used a similar phrase to describe the full festival a couple weeks ago. Well, this is me metaphorically zooming in on these 12+ hours. The vibes were immaculate heading in. Thursday and Friday’s shows had us buzzing, the weather was perfect, the lineup was crazy good and it just so happened to be my birthday. We skipped up to the stage in our matching TSR outfits and were greeted by Karly and the guys already in action. She looked straight out of the 90’s with her long, cut-off jean shorts, baggy t-shirt and her unkept hair. She singled out folks from the crowd and joked about their outfits, talked shit with her bandmates and even took a healthy jab at Amazon for underpaying their employees. How anti-establishment of her. Shades of Eddie Vedder’s beef with Ticketmaster all those years ago. I had only heard their album a handful of times so I wasn’t exactly singing along but they put off a damn good performance. It was safe to say we knew there was more Wednesday in our future.
Wednesday seem comparable to the skids in high school who don’t take life too seriously and are the nicest people around when you get to know them. But underneath it all, they’ve been through some shit. This is reflected in their lyrics of their upbringing in Southern America. You have no real insight into what the songs are about but the feeling is somber and you can connect with Karly as she balances her quiet and concise delivery with moments of liberating screams. I bet the group could tell a few stories, good and bad.
Rat Saw God’s music resonates with my personal taste and early on I was feeling the grunge elements on Hot Rotten Grass Smell and Bull Believer. Through ten tracks and thirty-seven minutes, the album has a raucous rock feeling with screams and yells but effectively levels out with a more chill, indie rock, shoegaze sound. The best combination is with Quarry, which is the best of bunch for my money. Wednesday deliver a start to finish, quality record. Almost.
What’s up with Chosen to Deserve? It’s like your playlist shuffles mid-way through the album. Maybe it’s their attempt at a radio song and versatility is appreciated but man, it just doesn’t belong. On top of that, it amplifies a borderline annoying vocal quirk scattered throughout the album which I can most accurately describe as a yodle. Other than that, Karly kills it.
Rat Saw God is another example of tough times inspiring excellent art. Wednesday are on their fifth album since 2017 with no signs of slowing down. Their mix of modern shoegaze and indie rock with subtle elements of grunge is a unique sound worth following.
Overall Rating: 8.2/10
Favourite Song: Quarry