The Wedding Present - Valentina
Well-worn template mixes with stabs at hummability
(Scopitones)
The last time this reviewer looked, which wasn’t yesterday admittedly, The Wedding Present were a bracing proposition, the musical equivalent of being dragged along a cobbled street in Halifax with one leg tied to a Raleigh Chopper. Flat and furiously-strummed, The Wedding Present were none more northern; the fanatically non-florid sound of some blokes banging away in the back bedroom then getting chips. Five prime ministers later and the template’s changed to some small extent, to work in a few spindly strands of Pavement, some stabs at the hummability of the Arctic Monkeys and the dynamics of later Sonic Youth. Ultimately, though, songs like ‘Back A Bit…Stop’ remain as grudging and colourless, and as fatiguingly guitar-y, as ever they were.
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