The Wedding Present

Manifesto/Scopitones

The new album Take Fountain comes with a flashy cover brandishing “The Wedding Present,” the name of a group dormant since 1997, when songwriter David Gedge began recording more mature and Baroque-styled pop songs under the name Cinerama, collaborating with girlfriend Sally Murrel. The relationship has recently ended, and Gedge has returned to the band he made his name with in the late ’80s. Unfortunately, he hasn’t fully shaken the musical indulgences that set Cinerama’s music apart from the brash and jangly sound of the Wedding Present—though at some choice moments the WP formula shines through and we realize what we’ve been missing.

Nowhere on the album is this more apparent than on the track “Ringway to Seatac,” where a guitar intro reaches back for the lo-fi grindy sound of the pre-Albini Wedding Present albums of the ’80s. Like the songs of that era, Gedge’s voice doesn’t dominate, and is sometimes barely intelligible underneath the crunching guitars. It’s a vintage Wedding Present move, and this song, with lyrics emerging about “being five hundred miles away” and “still desperately in love” hit the mark lyrically as well. The WP’s sense of humor is still here, as on “I’m From Farther North Than You,” when Gedge confesses, “I admit we’ve had some memorable days,” before appending (as the band kicks in), “but just not very many!”

But it’s ultimately a compromise. “Always the Quiet One” allows for rapid leading drum patterns and a nice arrangement of jangly guitars and keyboard. But even when the guitars start to really rumble towards the end, the song fails to capture the Wedding Present sound. It’s too polished—understandably, of course, because by this time around the Wedding Present are a chamber-pop band without the roughness around the musical edges that puts so much charm on a record like their ’87 debut George Best.

Other songs are vintage Cinerama—two tracks top six minutes, and Gedge’s voice is adapted to a slick sheen, with trademark frank lyrics, accompanied by soothing, Enya-like vocals. In these songs, “Interstate 5 (Extended Version)” in particular, the guitars are drawn out to dramatic effect, churning and emotionally pulling, evoking images of intent searching on a dark highway, in the sort of film-music vein so inspirational to Cinerama.

Wedding Present made a name for themselves on the strength of their bitter, bitter break-up songs, so in light of the album’s biographical circumstances, the name switch comes across potentially as therapy. Their classics have always hit the right mix of spite, frustration, and wounded ego, as opposed to the more confident and musically assured catalog of Cinerama. But honestly, David, it’s a little quick to change the name—at least until you up the distortion a little more and ditch the strings.

—Christopher A. Kukstis