Wednesday

Wednesday is a band from North Carolina made up of guitarist/vocalist Karly Hartzman, guitarist MJ Lenderman, bassist Margo Shultz, drummer Alan Miller, and lap/pedal steel player Xandy Chelmis. Hartzman writes most of her songs from her bedroom floor in Asheville, NC. Nodding to Nineties skuzz, shoegaze, and country, the music is gauzy and heady, a gnarled wall of sound where Hartzman’s voice and storytelling cut through the din. The band has long revered country lyricism – the dial in their car is often tuned to 105.5 The Outlaw, the DJ with the wild-ass voice – and the distorted lap steel innovations Chelmis unleashes on “Bull Believer’’ and elsewhere is an ode to the genre, to the music and imagery of the American south, the sprawl of the North Carolinian forests, a black bear darting through the yard during a barbecue with friends, a muggy summer and the impossible darkness only lit by lightning bugs when it’s real late at night.