Even more than with most indie guitar bands, the
songs David Gedge writes for The Wedding Present depend on their lyrics for
their punch. His guitar hooks are reliable enough on El Rey, the seventh all-new
studio Wedding Present album (compilations and live discs abound), and Steve
Albini engineers them vividly enough, but it's the words that fail him. For
every piquant moment like "Model, Actress, Whatever," there's a clunker like "I
thought women were supposed to tell you how they're feeling / But you're really
the most unrevealing" ("Palisades"). If anything, Gedge is too revealing. Most
of El Rey's
songs take place in West Hollywood, which he calls home, just as 2005's Take
Fountain was
more or less a Seattle album. And throughout both albums, he's
artless-verging-on-shticky, as on titles like "The Thing I Like Best About Him
Is His Girlfriend." No wonder he keeps getting dumped.