I should make it quite clear that I had this album long since listed in my top ten before Tom surprised me a day before I wrote this with his own piece on it. But it is nice to see that great minds think alike. ;-) Or perhaps we don't -- I've successfully avoided reading his specific review before writing my own, so we'll see where our conclusions ultimately differ.
About the time this came out in America a year after UK release, my good friend Eric J. Lawrence, scholar and gent, made the case that the Weddoes were a British equivalent to Nirvana (seeing as Nevermind had just come out six months previous). I wish I could remember his exact words on it, but I recall him noting that besides a similar sense of dynamics (then again, Steve Albini did produce the darn thing, and from there all the obvious connections can be made), there was also a sense of rock history in the grooves on the alternative side of things, and a way of making obvious conclusions and approaches feel very lively and good. And wouldn't you know, he was right, and it's interesting seeing how this has held up to the test of time as well.
"Dalliance" probably will always walk away with the song of album honors for most, simply because, well, it is the first song and very memorable at that, reducing the loud/soft/loud conclusion to one simple approach -- soft, then loud. A careful step by step way of getting there, though, not just dead silence then explosive noise, but a big mid-song break while getting louder as it gets. It's all very headclearing and satisfying without the lyrics, even, the way David Gedge and Pete Solowka rip up things with their guitars and then rip them up even further. And then add the lyrics about romantic jealousy from the bottom of a bleak, outraged heart -- and is it ever there -- and no wonder people were claiming new Morrissey status for the guy. And then, of course, it ends.
What's interesting about Seamonsters as it goes is how it’s the touches more than the songs, though I love the songs. There's that certain something about them, the part of me forever indiely happy, I suspect, though most of that milk of my human kindness curdled in 1993 after Sebadoh and Superchunk tanked what was left of my 'I abase myself to you, college rock' attitude, admittedly long since crumbled and shot through of holes. But there's also the way the guitar solos on "Dare" burn and cut, for instance, something about the production and the way they're played which defies words. Or there's the series of long notes on "Suck" which sound like a rocket taking off only to crash into something, a massive trajectory of utter despair.
Gedge's various melodramas in miniature always have a knack of making you shake your head regretfully and think, "Oh yeah. I remember that," and then heave a sigh. Prosaic, they were often called, and yet if we can deal with the outrageous fantasies that the pop apocalypse provides us on a regular basis, we can accept the rude returns to reality as well, and feel that weird empathy that suddenly appears when we least expect it, being 'just a name in your book.'
And "Corduroy" skips along with a weird sprightliness in the pain, "Lovenest" suddenly accelerates completely and then roars, "Carolyn" pulls off an acoustic little thing just right, undersinging even more than usual and with just the right amount of feedback at the end, "Heather" sounds like what happens when guitar effects become backing strings for a blasted heath and "Octopussy," oddly, sounds hopeful. In a way, in a comforting balm of a way. 'Twas ever thus, perhaps.