David Gedge has given us at least two great albums: 1989's Bizarro and 1991's Seamonsters. The former is a barrage of cutting guitar jangle, with Gedge growling and beaming all over it. The latter is a grander, murkier, fiercer affair, wherein Gedge playacts all the bitterness, frustration, and sheer craven meanness of the jilted, dating male; it's catharsis and black comedy in one package. After those career peaks, Gedge and his Wedding Present released a string of reliably snappy records, and then he formed Cinerama.
The difference between the Wedding Present and Cinerama is the difference between (a) getting drunk alone, calling your ex, hanging up on her new boyfriend, and breaking stuff, and (b) sipping a glass of merlot and gazing out at the park where the two of you picnicked. Cinerama is all adult pop classicism; suddenly the guy's bite is working around duets and string arrangements and 60s pop swing. And that's how things have been since roughly 1997.
So when Gedge regroups the Wedding Present for this album, certain expectations are raised: Has our man gotten sick of being classy? Is he itching to play guitar too fast and growl again?
The answer is: not really. Sure, this is more of a guitar record than anything Cinerama will ever make-- and some songs pull off noise-squall tricks running all the way back to Seamonsters. But Gedge has grown up, chilled out, and learned new chords; there's no point in turning back the clock. The band may be as in love as ever with the sound of their own amplifiers, but when it comes to songs, there's no changing course. The result is a lot like Elvis Costello's periodic returns to rock territory: snappy genre exercises from a reliable songwriter, but not much more.
There are moments that seem rote. You get the sense that the guy could sit down and toss off one of these songs at any moment-- some nice riffs, some well-arranged chord changes, and everything he wishes he'd said to his last girlfriend. And there are moments when that charming adulthood seems a bit easy: There's a certain thrill to hearing a classy break-up number reminisce about "the day we bought that weird pornography," but there's also a sense that Stephin Merritt has already beaten that horse dead.
The good news, though, is that Gedge just gets better and better at casting himself as an upscale songwriter, even outside the "sophisticated" confines of Cinerama. Who, back in 1991, would have guessed that his clenched-teeth complaining-voice came along with such an expressive croon? Who'd have guessed that fierce crabby Gedge--like Costello before him--would ride pop classicism to such a comfortable place? It's an unglamorous, underrated role, but it fits him beautifully. And here, beneath the obligatory vintage-Weddoes guitar snap, that's what you'll find: our older, wiser Gedge, still endlessly negotiating with girls.
