The Wedding Present
Saturnalia (Cooking Vinyl)
by Patrick Smith
Nobody can do romantic angst with the brilliance of The Wedding Present‘s David Gedge, the definitive songwriter for estranged boyfriends. His guitar-charged anthems of betrayal have set the tone on a half-dozen albums and bin-loads of singles in the past ten years. A complete discography is huge, with a steady stream of releases, both vinyl and digital, since the mid-1980s. In 1992, for example, the band released a seven-inch single every month, and these twenty-four songs were later compiled on the Hit Parade CDs, volumes 1 and 2. And it’s worth a mention that the Wedding Present are surely the only band in history to cover not one, but two songs from early ’80s candy-poppers Altered Images, the sickly-sweet new wave outfit of “Happy Birthday” fame.
Despite his perennial heartbreak, Gedge normally avoids the dirge-rock formula with brash, ironic melodies. The Wedding Present’s own press releases describe their songs as “lo-fi pop,” an unfortunate description that neglects their biggest talent: turning innocent, skeletal melodies into breakneck rock and roll, a talent best personified on 1989’s fantastic Bizarro,the domestic version of which was partly produced by indie-icon Steve Albini. Think “lo-fi pop” and it’s the Velvet Underground’s soft, greasy melodies that come to mind, or Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain, neither of which is anything like the Wedding Present’s usual hammer-charge. (Not that Gedge doesn’t sing a fine version of the VU’s “She’s My Best Friend.”)
Chart-reachers in the UK, the Weddoes have floundered on the indie circuit here. Last year’s Mini was a quiet rebound from 1994’s lackluster Watusi, falling somewhere between the straight-ahead blast of ’88’s masterful Tommy and the more darkly textured Seamonsters from ’91. While the new Saturnalia starts off with all the vintage intensity of Gedge’s best work, it quickly falls on its face and doesn’t move. The kickoff chords of opener “Venus” are fierce and unforgettable, a punch on par with “Brassneck” or “This Boy Can Wait” from earlier days. But it’s all downhill from there.
Gedge abandons his signature, wrist-snapping guitar style and leaves us with slushy, formless meandering: tempos drone in watery, predictable melodies, sometimes bursting noisily – and meaninglessly – just when they should settle. Far worse, Gedge has mutated his dark, foreboding voice – usually one of the heaviest around – into a whiny croon that’ll have you wincing. It’s normally not a stretch to compare Gedge’s vocals to those of the late, and equally tormented, Ian Curtis of Joy Division. (Some say the Fall’s Mark E. Smith is more accurate.) Now imagine, if you dare, Curtis trying to sing like the Cure’s Robert Smith. In fact, most of Saturnalia‘s twelve songs themselves have a whimpering, Cure-ish affectation – itself not a bad thing, necessarily, but in the context of the power we’re used to, I might as well be comparing their sound to a Polish polka. Gedge’s high-pitched squeal at the end of “Snake Eyes” is enough to make you laugh out loud, as is the cloying “doodoo-de-doo…” chorus of “Hula Doll.”
Fans who remember Seamonsters know best the band’s penchant for wrenching, split-tempo attacks – sad songs that explode not into tears, but into searing white noise and drop-forged anger. In the past, even in the most sentimental moments of songs like “Give My Love to Kevin” and “Unfaithful” (from a great Peel Sessions disc), Gedge kept the corners razor sharp, the emotions rough enough to keep us from blushing. Check out “Blue Eyes” from the Hit Parade collection. These are love songs, it can be said, whose beauty is to be appreciated, or maybe feared, like an erupting volcano or a Great White shark. But never have we seen such finger-down-the-throat brooding and sappy refrains as we do on Saturnalia. There’s no bitterness, no irony, no fire to save it from all-out melodramatic suicide.
While Gedge once lamented furiously over “those massive dents I left in your door…”( Bizarro‘s “No.”),today we get fluff: “I can’t stop dreaming about you…” On the interminably corny “Big Boots,” you can almost see him – or is it Robert Smith after all? – fluttering his lashes and weeping into the microphone. And at perhaps the absolute lowest point in Weddoes history thus far, during “Dreamworld,” Gedge pukes up the line, “I’m on my way right over there… to lick your wounds.” Meanwhile, the sugary backup singing of Jane Lockey, introduced to us with a little more dignity on Mini, would have played nicely against Gedge’s resonance, but instead only thickens the goo.
Yet Saturnalia, its fluff aside, is neither a saccharine grab for the charts nor a bad case of over-experimentation on Gedge’s part. It’s neither catchy enough nor gloomy enough for any MTV credibility, and in traditional Weddoes fashion – maybe some things are sacred – there are no self-indulgent band photos in the package. Rather, this is simply Mr. Gedge trying too hard and embarrassing the hell out of himself in the process. Fortunately for listeners, the Wedding Present’s past, one of the richest and most unheralded in all of underground rock, offers many better choices than Saturnalia‘s sonic impotence.
