Listen to “Handsome Man” by Wednesday
Wednesday scratch a familiar itch. “Handsome Man,” a single from the Asheville band’s upcoming record Twin Plagues, wears its 1990s influences on its tattered sleeves: a gnarly riff, a thick layer of fuzz, and ribbons of whining feedback. By now, you’re maybe thinking, “Okay yeah, so what?” But Wednesday’s intrigue comes from its unique approach to slacker poetics, courtesy of frontwoman Karly Hartzman. Atop a sticky melody that would make Pavement proud, Hartzman describes a desolate vision of junkyards and smashed cars. “I’m all alone in a snowglobe,” she sings. “Where do we go when the glow goes home?” There’s nothing so sinister in the song’s video, which captures the band rocking out in a deserted Kmart parking lot, slurping gas station milkshakes, and shredding with Ring Pops on their fingers. The dream of the ’90s is alive in Wednesday.