THE teasing title Going, Going...might suggest The Wedding Present could soon be gone, with their ninth studio album as their parting gift. That conjecture can wait for another day.

First let's celebrate the wandering, experimental bent in northern songwriter David Gedge who decided he "didn’t want to make just ‘another album’ and so I came up with the idea of 20 connected pieces of music".

He travelled across the USA with photographer Jessica McMillan in Summer 2014 to create atmospheric, beautiful short films to accompany the songs, then tried out all sorts of studio ideas to see how they worked when set against the visuals.

They do work, but the songs remain the greater thing, typically stinging Gedge tales of life and love, but not typically formed as they veer unpredictably off the beaten track, opening with filmic incidental soundscapes, then lurching from melancholia to growling guitar feedback, never letting you settle on the rocky road trip. Going, going? Hopefully, staying, staying, instead.