This is a review of "Take Fountain" recorded by The Wedding Present. The review was written by Richard Garnett in 2005.

Too raw to be a Cinerama record, but then you'd never have got a The Wedding Present record with strings and bongos on it? Take Fountain is the long playing return to the name by which they are best known for Gedge & Co. And oh how it has paid off: sold out shows and a total reverse of the dwindling interest in the Cinerama project. Yet it's as if Take Fountain is covered in virtual post-it notes that read "look what you've been missing out on", intended to be read by those returning to Gedge's work after an absence of 8 years.

There's no denying this is one of the best records either Cinerama or TWP have made for a while, however the bolted on "film score" play outs actually prove quite tiresome by the time the trick has been used a forth time. Just watch yourself reach for the skip button the second time you reach the extended end of Interstate 5.

Matters are easily forgiven with songs as brilliant as Always The Quiet One, Mars Sparkles Down On Me, Ringway to Seatac, It's For You and massive ender Perfect Blue. It's interesting to consider Gedge has made an entire career out of songs about relationship difficulties and yet it's taken him 20 years to make one about his own problems, many tracks charting the clearly painful break up of his own long term relationship. This bravery alone makes this a record well worth owning but throw in a continuing genius with lyrics, song structures plus noisy guitars, and it's a winning formula.