English indie rock band formed in Leeds and fronted by David Gedge, known for jangly, guitar-driven songs and emotionally direct lyrics. Key albums include George Best, Bizarro and Seamonsters.

David Gedge is the band's frontman and principal songwriter. Seamonsters was produced by Steve Albini (as noted in reviews). The band's work is often described as guitar-driven indie/post-punk with themes of love and loss.

Three DeBaser reviews praise The Wedding Present's direct, guitar-driven indie rock and David Gedge's lyricism. Seamonsters is highlighted for its stormy Albini production; Bizarro and George Best are noted for memorable songs and tight arrangements. Overall admiration for songwriting and distinctive sonic textures.

For:Fans of indie rock and British post-punk; listeners who prefer guitar-driven, melancholic songwriting and production-focused album discussions.

 Seamonsters is the sound of this malignant, nocturnal sea: a storm of guitar distortions, sudden dissonances, sonic incursions - highlights include the furious, interminable breaks of Lovenest, at the end of a refrain reminiscent of Ian Curtis's obsessive monotony - electric ballads on the brink of a nervous breakdown, acoustic ballads disturbed by the thunders of an ever-prominent drum, a metallic, scratching bass - a rhythm section of great experience, as pragmatic as it is effectively destructive - post-hardcore accelerations amidst mists of feedback and walls of distortion raised by the excellent Solowka, at times overshadowing the rest, without however creating the sensory peace effect of certain shoegaze: because toiling underneath, beneath the foam, under the distorted waves of Dalliance, is the desperate pulsing of a disillusioned and disappointed man, seduced and abandoned by his sea monster, the married woman incapable of being swept away by passion, by life.

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 "Bizarro" probably isn’t a five-star album but it definitely contains "Brassneck", "Granadaland", and "Kennedy": unless proven otherwise, you didn’t write them, David Gedge did.

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 "If I could live one day/ again, that day will be the one".

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