Present, and accounted for

David Gedge’s songs have always made him sound as if he has been knocked around by matters of the heart. With the revival of his indie outfit the Wedding Present after an eight-year hiatus, the 45-year-old songwriter demonstrated he’s still up to throwing some counterpunches.

That’s evident from the opening guitar swell of “Interstate 5,” the epic “driving song” that leads off last year’s comeback album “Take Fountain.” The song’s restless ache -- capped on the album version by a string- and horn-laden denouement right out of a spaghetti western -- wields the bite that gave the Wedding Present 17 Top 40 singles in the U.K. and made Gedge a favorite of the late DJ John Peel.

“We thought, ‘This song has got to start the album,’ ” Gedge says. “It sounds bold, it makes a statement: Wedding Present is back.”

It was back, indeed, but not without bearing the mark of Cinerama, the project Gedge started in 1997 with his girlfriend Sally Murrell that spawned three albums of darker, more orchestral pop. In late 2002, Gedge broke up with Murrell and moved from Britain to Seattle. There, he wrote new material and reunited with producer Steve Fisk (Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden), who helmed the Wedding Present’s strong 1994 effort, “Watusi.”

“We thought initially we were headed for Cinerama album No. 4, really, but the music ended up reflecting both groups,” Gedge says. Not that he minded. “It’s always been one of my fundamental ideas: Don’t make an album and later make it again. We have changed, people have changed, and the music should reflect that -- which is probably commercial suicide. After all, people buy a box of corn flakes and they always expect it to taste like corn flakes.”

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-- Kevin Bronson

The Wedding Present, the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. 8 p.m. Saturday. $15 to $17. (310) 276-6168. Download the single version of “Interstate 5” free at music.download.com/theweddingpresent/3600-8602_32-100069840.html