I played this at the opposite end of my drive to Llangollen (see yesterday), before I had a passenger. Somehow I thought the indie rock relationship wrangling was less appropriate for sharing than the neo-pagan syncretic folk, free improv duet or crossover string quartet CDs I'd brought along (see next two days for the latter).
It always seemed unlikely that The Wedding Present would match the glory of their first album, and I've mostly steered clear of their stuff since. However, I bought Seamonsters when it came out because their choice of Steve Albini as producer seemed to signal an intent to stretch in new directions.
Whenever I think of this album, I can only remember Dalliance, the opening track (and the one I referred to here). Listening again, it does seem to stand for the whole thing. So consistent are the themes of love-gone-wrong that what we have here is basically a prog concept album about infidelity. All you need to do is to add some bridging sections, complete with tempo changes (I'm pretty sure the time signature is 4/4 throughout), between the songs, and you'd have a couple of side-long "thematic compositions" instead of ten angsty pop songs.
I've never heard Wedding Present albums other than this, George Best and Hit Parade 1. Sometime in the late nineties, before he did the dirty on Tim, I consulted J, who I think had all the albums, on which he thought was the essential one apart from George Best. He said Seamonsters, so I felt vindicated. More water has passed under the bridge since then, but I'm guessing the same still applies.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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