Pitchfork

[Posted Wednesday, October 8th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

It's an infrequent pleasure to be able to say that a band of special influence is still musically competent 27 years into their career. Plenty of old groups remain perfectly capable of delivering the goods in a live setting (as anyone who attended the Rolling Stones' much-touted Forty Licks tour is likely to attest), but it's an incredibly rare accomplishment for any band to retain the musical vision necessary to record notably good music so far down the road. Leave it to seminal art-punks Wire to be the exception to the aural rule.

You're probably already aware that Wire released the Read and Burn EP's on their Pink Flag label back in 'ought two, following a 12-year recording hiatus. The new material gave a nod to the energetic intensity of their early work, while at the same time updating their sound with a thick, droning wave of guitar buzz and nigh-industrial rhythms. In May of this year, Wire released Send, an amalgamation of choice tracks from the Read and Burn releases and four wholly new songs. The band has made a commendable (pat pat) return to the world of recorded music, and provided you've got a little European flavor going on, you might be able to catch them live sometime in the next week:

10-08 Catania, Italy - Z
10-09 Roma, Italy - Init
10-10 San Dona, Italy - Di Piave
10-11 Rimini, Italy - Velvet Rock Club
10-12 Ponderano-Biella, Italy - Babylonia