Craig Wedren and Team Love? Dubious. The label's feel-good aura seems completely out of step with the weird, tortured Craig Wedren we know from the glammed-up D.C. post-punk of his old band, Shudder to Think. How would the man whose sickly-sweet falsetto once wrapped around lyrics like "A doodle of some ancient mother fucking her son" fit in with the Willy Masons of the world? Has he forfeited his dark allure for a slice of the teen-angst alt-folk pie?
Shudder to Think weren't the hardest rocking band or weirdest band to emerge from the fertile 1980s D.C. punk scene, but their combination of the two produced some of that period's most unique music. After releasing several terrific records of haunting, pop-infected post-punk on Dischord, Shudder to Think recruited new drummer Adam Wade and the inimitable guitarist Nathan Larson, signed with Epic, and released the career-defining Pony Express Record. Beautifully damaged arpeggios slithered and spiked over oblique rock riffs, and Wedren's voice was exquisite, sliding frictionlessly between glassy falsetto, velvet purr, and operatic howl to invest his elliptical poems with a nauseating magnetism. But after the polished glam of the underappreciated 50,000 B.C. didn't perform commercially, Shudder to Think was just a few indie film scores away from dissolution.
Wedren's kept busy messing around with his arty pop band Baby, cabaret troupe the Citizens Band, and scoring more films, but since Lapland features songs that would've been on the next Shudder to Think album (if they'd stayed together) in addition to one-off film contributions, it's the Wedren project that most obviously begs for comparison to his old band. Make no mistake-- Lapland is a mainstream pop record; "One Man's Heart" and "Do You Wrong" were co-written with Jimmy Harry, who's penned songs for Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue. Even with the poppier, more accessible turn Shudder to Think took with 50,000 B.C, it's difficult to imagine them playing these charming but strictly MOR pop ditties.
So there's predictable bad news and good news. The bad news-- the serpentine guitars and scary lyrics are gone, replaced with unflashy reverb and genial platitudes. Hey, our man's all growed up now. The good news is that even though the wind-tunnel vibrato is mostly absent, Wedren's voice sounds terrific, an expressive and formidable instrument. He's using it more traditionally, but his blend of eerie falsetto and soulful croon remains striking. If most of the tunes on Lapland blend pleasantly into the background (it's easy to see why some of them have been picked up as incidental music for television and film), certain moments leap to the foreground: The majestic vocal crescendo of the bridge of "Do You Harm", for instance, and the various times on songs like "Wanna Drive?" and "Fifteen Minutes Late" when Wedren's voice suddenly takes flight into the wordless, chilly upper regions of his range. Some diehard Shudder to Think fans will hate Lapland for its unapologetic softening, and new Wedren fans who delve into Shudder to Think's back catalog on its strength will be in for a nasty shock, but if, like me, you're still mesmerized by Pony Express Record a decade after the fact, it's a must-cop.
