Wire – ‘Wire’

It is something to marvel at when a band can create music for the best part of 40 years and still manage to sound relevant each time. One such band that has managed this is Wire. After emerging in 1977 with their post-punk masterpiece ‘Pink Flag’, they would become one of the most influential British bands in history. Their influence has stretched far and wide, even being embraced by hardcore punk bands such as Ceremony and Ampere, who have both covered them, and in the case of Ceremony, moulded their more recent sound around the blueprint of what Wire laid down before them.

Of course no band wants to make regressive music, and rightfully so. With a legacy like Wire have it would have been easy for them to have just made ‘Pink Flag Pt.II’ again and again, but they have embraced new elements and sounds each time around, and their new self-titled – and their staggering 13th – album they have once again pushed their creativity.

The moody repetition of ‘Blogging’ sets the tone for the album, and is in a similar tradition to their previous work but still sounds fresh. Robert Grey’s stripped back use of just a snare, hi-hat, and kick drum gives his motorised rhythms room to breathe through ‘Burning Bridges’ and ‘Manchester’ under waves of silky synths.

The guitar playing of Colin Newman is simple but affective, and is not the main focus of the record. It is only really noticeable through ‘Sleep-Walking’ and the new wave pop of ‘Joust and Jostle’ where he proves that sometimes all you need is three chords when played in the right way. The whole atmosphere of the record is still dark, and at times mysterious which is what Wire have always been, and feels like it was very meticulously planned out. Every synth lead and bass run feels like it is supposed to be in that place, and is very precise in its delivery giving the album a very mechanical feel.

It is this precision which makes Wire one of the more accomplished bands to have come from the 70’s punk scene. Imagine if you heard a band like Sex Pistols write a song like ‘Spit Your Ends’, with its warm keyboard swells you would instantly accuse them of being “sell outs”. When Wire want to add some noise to their arsenal though, they are not afraid to do so. They end the album with the colossal ‘Harpooned’, which is 8-minutes of overdriven guitars that are reminiscent of Killing Joke at their most dissonant, before fading out in a sea of cavernous noise.

This album won’t appeal to everyone, but those with an appreciation of something a little different will find it interesting, and ultimately impossible to stop listening too. There’s a saying that was popularised within krautrock sometime ago that if you hear the same sound long enough you will start to go through various emotions until you finally reach acceptance even if you didn’t like it at first. That can be applied to Wire’s self titled album, as it becomes more infectious with every listen.

GLEN BUSHELL