Wednesday just shared that their next album, Bleeds, is coming out on September 19 through Dead Oceans.
Along with this news, the band dropped a fresh track called “Wound Up Here (By Holdin On),” and there’s a music video directed by Joriel Cura to go with it. Karly Hartzman talked about where the song came from, saying, “This song is inspired by a story my friend told me, from when he had to pull a body out of a creek in West Virginia. Someone had drowned but they took a few days to resurface because of the current.” She also mentioned, “‘I wound up here by holdin on’ is a line from my friend Evan Gray’s poetry book: Thickets Swamped in a Fence-Coated Briars. He gave me and Jake [Lenderman] a copy of it to read on tour once, and that line stuck out to me as pure genius, so I stole it and wrote the rest of the song in my own words around it.”
Instead of working with someone new, Wednesday decided to record Bleeds at Drop of Sun in Asheville again, sticking with Alex Farrar, who produced their last albums. The band—Karly Hartzman, MJ Lenderman, Xandy Chelmis, Ethan Baechtold, and Alan Miller—put together 12 songs for this record, including “Elderberry Wine,” which fans already know.
Fans really hope MJ Lenderman will play live with Wednesday again someday.
Once the album is out, Wednesday will travel all over North America for a tour, with Friendship joining them on the West Coast and Daffo on the East Coast. Lenderman shared that he’s not touring with the group anymore, but he’s still part of the band for recording, and his own album Manning Fireworks dropped last fall.
Recently, Wednesday performed “Elderberry Wine” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which was their first time playing on TV. Before that, Lenderman and Hartzman played “Wristwatch” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this year.
Here’s what’s on Bleeds:
01 Reality TV Argument Bleeds
02 Townies
03 Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)
04 Elderberry Wine
05 Phish Pepsi
06 Candy Breath
07 The Way Love Goes
08 Pick Up That Knife
09 Wasp
10 Bitter Everyday
11 Carolina Murder Suicide
12 Gary’s II
