Monday 30th January 2017
Photo: Press
Oh to be “18”, and feel again that bittersweet conflict of emotions, torn perpetually between melancholy and frustration. Everyone knows “these vicissitudes tell best in youth”.
It’s these vicissitudes that characterised shoegaze for example, and it’s an internal conflict that Wedding orchestrate to even fiercer extremes with “18”, the lead single from their upcoming debut LP, Mania Whatever. Citing influences including Big Star and Phil Spector, they marry (if you’ll forgive the pun) the reflective moodiness of their pop melodies with a visceral, distorted stonewall of sound. Songwriter Thomas Craig has described “18” as “the first song that helped me look back on and package away a pretty bleak period of bullying and abuse in school”.
Wedding is Craig’s most recent project since Charles Howl, and the band relocated to Manchester shortly before writing for the new album began. Their fusion of pop hooks, punk energy and kaleidoscopic, opiate smudged production is a strangely effective admixture of the city’s musical timeline.
Mania Whatever will be released on 23rd March on Stockholm label Maternal Voice. Wedding are also currently supporting The Proper Ornaments on their UK tour.