The Wedding Present
Tommy (1985-1987)
[Cooking Vinyl]
Rating: 7.5
Man, oh, man, how I'm digging these Wedding Present reissues. This one's
a collection of the early singles that are now collector's items. (This
disc isn't collectable, though; they've got a million of 'em.) A bit
darker than the tracks on the George Best Plus disc, the songs
on Tommy call to mind more mid- period Husker Du than Smiths
influences. Conversely, it also has its moments of fumbling, but it's
more a Fran Tarkenton kind of fumble, and I don't mean his recent
conversion to TV pitchman for that shady home loan outfit. (By the way,
Fran, nice hair.) But in England, football is soccer, and speaking of
England, that's the home of the Wedding Present. Their furious razor-
sharp guitar chords chatter away at 90 MPH and David Gedge can whine
like a stuffed- up Morrissey and snarl with hollow- throated prowess.
If you can't dig it, you're gonna have to put down that shovel.
-Jason Josephes