Out of Asheville, North Carolina, the band Wednesday, led by singer and lyricist Karly Hartzman, has established itself as one of the revelations of American indie rock. Marrying the din of noise rock to the melancholy of country and slide guitar, the outfit cultivate a singular sound, at once abrasive and heart-rending. Rat Saw God is its masterful culmination, and the critics have not been fooled.
With an 86 average across eleven reviews, the record ranks among the most acclaimed of the year. The press praises above all the writing of Karly Hartzman, chronicler of a peri-urban America made of gas stations, overdoses, teenage boredom and hidden tenderness. Her lyrics, of a raw and poetic realism, turn the banal into intimate epic.
Musically, Rat Saw God plays on contrasts: walls of saturated guitars, feedback, and suddenly a plaintive pedal steel that soothes everything. The band combine the legacy of shoegaze, grunge and alt-country with a formal freedom that makes each track unpredictable. It is a record of textures as much as of narratives.
One may find the whole uneven at times, certain tracks more sketched than fully realised, and the wide gap between softness and din will disconcert the hurried listener. But that roughness is also the worth of a work that refuses smoothing.
Verdict: 8.5/10. An inhabited, harsh and tender record placing Wednesday among the most promising voices of contemporary American rock.
