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- Date Released: May 6, 2003
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Label: pinkflag / state51
The already lean post-punk band strips to skin and bones
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We Say...
When Wire reconvened circa 2000 for their third incarnation as a band, they did a brief tour where they played old material — the first time, really, they'd ever looked back at their career. Perhaps playing the hyper-compressed rockers from their earliest days got them interested in very loud, very tense music again, but after issuing the first two Read & Burn EPs as "status reports," they compiled parts of both of them (and a few new tracks) for Send, the most muscular album they'd ever made. It's blisteringly loud, fast and smart, ditching the chiming pop surfaces of their '80s incarnation in favor of a harsh, nearly relentless grind and slam.
The abstract lyrics, brief running times (aside from the seven-minute earthquake of a finale, "99.9") and skin-and-bones riffs have more in common with 1977's Pink Flag than any of their other records, but this is the Pink Flag aesthetic run through a CPU grinder — electronic editing and digital distortion are a big part of Wire mark III's sound.
The songs on Send are sometimes not much more than gestures to wrap an arrangement around — the title of "Nice Streets Above" is also the entire extent of its lyrics, hissed in a furious robotic voice — but both of Wire's singers, guitarist Colin Newman and bassist Graham Lewis, get off some good ones. "Comet" is a three-chord, one-note marvel about "a heaven-sent extinction event," and "The Agfers of Kodack" finds Lewis bellowing a nearly incomprehensible but commanding hellfire sermon with Newman crooning a countermelody behind him and Bruce Gilbert adding ripostes of steel-wool guitar noise. And their compositions aren't even as set in this form as Pink Flag's immaculate miniatures were: just in case anyone found the two-to-three-minute tracks on Send excessively long-winded, the band also issued pf456 Redux, which slices the 16 songs that make up Send and Read & Burn 1 and 2 down to a total running time under 40 minutes. -
They Say...
Send is a quasi-compilation and pseudo-new album from an older and much more ferocious Wire; it plucks seven songs from the two low-key Read & Burn EPs the group released on its own Pink Flag label in 2002 and adds four new ones. This is the culmination, perhaps, of the group's 1999 re-formation -- an outcome that only attendees of the terse performances and buyers of the EPs could have forecasted. Unlike a lot of re-formed groups, Wire chose not to be a jukebox with its old material while performing in front of its multi-generational crowds. The bandmembers didn't merely run through pieces of their beloved discography, or even inject new life into them -- they tore through them with a vigorous energy that teetered on the brink of violence. The new material collected and built on here takes on the same tightly wound, clenched-teeth direction. Thick walls of clamor are constructed on each song. The opening "In the Art of Stopping" is a relatively unassuming din of whipsaw guitars and percussion that could double as the sound of railroad ties being driven into the ground. Colin Newman's voice hectors ominously as it slowly shifts from one channel to the other and back again. All the buzzing sets up the viscous and highly repetitive grinding of "Mr. Marx's Table," where Newman takes on a more hospitable tone. On "Spent," Bruce Gilbert practically screams at the top of his lungs and fights to be heard over an overwhelming bank of industrial guitars that twist with agitated riffs and squeals. The only break from the onslaught comes during the closing "99.9," which takes nearly four minutes to be worked into another rich lather of vibrating menace. Dynamic, taut, feisty, and clever as ever, Send is this group's fourth-best album.
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| 01. |  |
In the Art of Stopping |
3:35 |
|
| 02. | |
Mr Marx's Table |
3:02 |
|
| 03. | |
Being Watched |
2:58 |
|
| 04. | |
Comet |
3:18 |
|
| 05. | |
The Agfers of Kodack |
3:12 |
|
| 06. | |
Nice Streets Above (full version) |
3:45 |
|
| 07. | |
Spent |
4:43 |
|
| 08. | |
Read & Burn |
2:35 |
|
| 09. | |
You Can't Leave Now |
3:42 |
|
| 10. | |
Half Eaten |
1:59 |
|
| 11. | |
99.9 |
7:42 |
|
11 Total Tracks, 40:31 Total Length
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Credits
- Colin Newman - Mixing // Wire - Main Performer // Denis Blackham - Mastering // Dave Coppenhall - Design
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