Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.
Craig Wedren: Wand (Nerveland, 9/27/11)
Craig Wedren: “Are We”
[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Craig_Wedren_Are_We.mp3|titles=Craig Wedren: “Are We”]Morrow: In 1994, Shudder to Think scored a brief and unlikely radio hit with “X-French Tee Shirt,” a quirky rock anthem with a crescendo-building three-minute chorus/outro. Though the mathy post-hardcore four-piece had an established résumé, including a release on Dischord, a move to Epic Records gave it a chance at radio exposure, introducing impressionable alt-rock listeners to front-man Craig Wedren and his breathy, fiercely belted falsettos.
Since his time in Shudder to Think, Wedren has spent a lot of time writing themes for film and television, and he released a pair of solo albums (one entirely of ambient tracks) in the 2000s. Wand is “official” followup to the 2005 album Lapland.
The Trunk Space offers Phoenix an alternative to “diets of TV, commercial radio, and mall fashion.”