Where many punk bands splutter and run out of creative juice and energy after one great debut album, followed by a disappointing follow-up, Wire are the exception to the rule. Although the band surfaced as the first wave of UK punk washed over the world in 1976, they were always different from their many one-chord thrashing contemporaries. To this day their debut album ‘Pink Flag‘ is one of the most creative and energized albums of the early punk era. Short, sharp songs with weird off-kilter rhythms and strange structures are successfully fused with a brilliant pop sensibility that make ‘Pink Flag‘ a genuine classic of it’s era and a huge influence on everything from the DC hardcore of Rites Of Spring to the spiky brit-pop of Elastica (who robbed the band of everything they created!).
After Pink Flag they went further and further out into the unknown on subsequent albums, becoming more and more progressive but always making sure the pop hooks were still firmly clamped on.
And against all odds, the band are STILL creating good and challenging music. After a series of EP and single releases, ‘Object 47‘ is their first full new album since 2003’s ‘Send‘ and is far more melodic and song based than the fierce and abrasive brilliant middle-aged tantrums of ‘Send‘. Although there’s still an underlying creepiness to their sound and all of the band’s trademark creativity is still intact, songs like ‘One Of Us‘ and ‘Perspex Icon‘ are perfect odd-ball pop that recall some of the band’s later eighties material.
Winding up with the decidedly nasty, almost industrial sounding ‘All Fours’, ‘Object 47’ is the sound of a band still loving what they do and not willing to join the punk nostalgia circuit that so many of their ilk are stuck on.
James Sherry