Review: Wire - Red Barked Tree

In their earler days, Wire were famed, notorious even, for their restless creativity and for never looking back; live performances routinely comprised yet-to-be released material, often to the frustration of attendees. It was this insatiable thirst that led to that initial run of Pink Flag-Chairs Missing-154, one of the greatest and most influential hot-streaks of all time. Their sporadic reunions were always based on the admirable criteria that the band had something new to offer, from their more electronic offerings of the 80s to the agressive, thrashy sound of their Read & Burn material of the early-00's. But having become a more on-going concern in recent years (and with Bruce Gilbert no longer in their ranks) has seen age finally catch up with the band, and a more reminiscing side of Wire emerge.

Which is not to say that Red Barked Tree, their twelfth LP, sounds tired. Far from it in fact; Red Barked Tree is one of the most compact  and immediately accessible albums in the band's catalogue, touching in particular on that aforementioned holy trinity of records from 1977-79, but given just a little bit more studio polish. The up-front approach of Red Barked Tree comes through immediately on opener Please Take, wherein bassist Graham Lewis intones, with perhaps just a little bit too much deliberation, "f*ck off out of my face, you take up too much space", and on the crisp Two Minutes, a buzzing 120 seconds-worth of raw riffage and Colin Newman's scathing remarks on the end of western civilization and  "religious vomit". Moreover reprises the riff from A Question Of Degree (formerly a bonus track on an earlier edition of Chairs Missing) and beefs it up significantly as it scythes through Newman's warped vocals, and the nagging rhythm of Clay recalls the classic I Am The Fly.

These songs and much of the remaining material succeed because, and not despite of, their familiarity but when Red Barked Tree wanders down other avenues that things unfortunately go a bit awry. Adapt is a pleasant enough diversion of gauzy shoegaze guitars, but an otherwise concise album is marred slightly by its final two cuts, Down To This and the title track. Both songs touch upon the five-minute mark despite being bereft of ideas, content to trudge along aimlessly for what seems an eternity.

These abberations however, are not enough to derail a solid outing, delivered  for the most part with conviction, and a significant improvement on 2008's largely disappointing Object 47. If nothing else, Red Barked Tree show that Wire still have a firm grasp of past glories and that drawing from them doesn't have to mean going through the motions.

73/100