It’s the last batch of 2023 reviews for 2024. There’s a marked contrast between the rough-hewn sounds of Asheville’s Wednesday and the pristine, keyboard-driven sophisti-pop of Laura Groves.
Laura Groves
Radio Red
2023, 9/10
Laura Groves released her debut album, as Blue Roses, back in 2009. There have been a few EPs since, but it’s taken her almost 15 years to release a second album.
She’s undergone a stylistic change over those 15 years. Where Cold Roses had elements of twee-folk, like Joanna Newsom, Radio Red is sleek and sophisticated pop. It sounds like Kate Bush or Tori Amos at their most polite, or like the smoothness and etherealness of The Blue Nile and The Cocteau Twins.
Groves is good at pushing her pretty voice through meandering melodies like ‘Sky at Night’. There are some lovely tunes – ‘I’m Not Crying’ backs Groves’ plaintive vocal with classy electric piano. Sampha adds backing vocals to ‘D 4 N’, but most of it sounds like Groves completely solo, accompanying herself with keyboards and occasional drum programming.
The studio versions are more layered and interesting. But this live version of ‘D 4 N’ demonstrates Groves’ prowess as a pianist and vocalist:
Radio Red is gorgeous, Groves applying her lovely voice to pretty tunes.
Wednesday
Rat Saw God
2023, 7/10
Karly Hartzman has been prolific this decade. Rat Saw God is her band’s fourth album since 2020. 2020 marks the point when Hartzman recruited a band of musicians to support her. MJ Lenderman, who also has a solo career, is the band’s lead guitarist and Hartzman’s romantic partner.
On Wednesday’s fifth album, they play rough-hewn music, combining the rawest elements of country and indie. The album recalls Hartzman’s teenage years, when her father lost his job in the 2008 subprime mortgage crash, making her adolescence even more fraught.
Hartzman is a raw vocalist – it’s not always pleasant, like the second half of the lengthy ‘Bull Believer’ (the first half is killer). She sounds better in tighter structures. I like the punchy riff on ‘Chosen to Deserve’ – even if it feels like it’s been done before, it’s different in the band’s country context, fading into pedal steel. ‘Got Shocked’ moves into shoegaze territory, while ‘Quarry’ almost sounds like a Kinks song.
Hartzman’s raw vocals sometimes make Rat Saw God a tough listen, but there’s some genuine magic.
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I like the Karly Hartzman song a lot. I like her rawer voice…it sounds real and geniune. She has her own thing going on and doesn’t sound like everyone else. The steel guitar (I suppose) adds to the song as well.
She sounds fine on the faster songs, I think – it’s when it slows down a little that it gets a little grating. It’s a good thing that she’s emotive and distinctive though.
That runs into my likes…I like the different voices but I know it’s harder for them to make it at times…
While the more rock-oriented rougher sound of Wednesday should be more up my alley than Laura Groves’ more polished pop vibe, I think I prefer “Radio Red.” I also tend to pay close attention to vocals and feel in this department Groves is more compelling than Karly Hartzman.
Groves is a very good singer, I think. Writes pretty tunes that a lot of other vocalists couldn’t navigate as well.