The band Wire are truly inspirational. The only ones of the original London Punk pack still standing as a creative concern forty five years on and still putting out remarkable music. Their sheer longevity is appropriate really, as they were never just punks in the first place. Way ahead of their time even way back then.
So here they are in 2020 with Mind Hive, their seventeenth album. Seventeen albums! That's some work ethic. I'm ashamed to say that I foolishly thought that it might be a bit of a chore to listen all the way through to this but something I should do out of the respect I hold for them. How wrong I was. This is no museum piece. Mind Hive doesn't tread water for a moment. They're still very much a working project and sound very much alive. Vital even.
This sounds like Wire. Of course it does. They were always a band who pushed onward tirelessly, never remotely interested in trading on or re-living former glories. Nevertheless, there are songs here that wouldn't sound out of place on Chairs Missing or 154.
That's no slur, just a huge compliment. The songs here are that good. Still celebral, deeply thoughtful, slightly pissed off I suspect but also full of wonder for life and pulsing with vigour.
When critics look for recipients to acclaim as National Treasures and end up hanging wreaths around the scrawny necks of obvious and often undeserving recipients, they should really be looking to the likes of Wire, those who have just kept their heads down and gone about their jobs, not for fame or adulation, focused, concentrated on the work at hand. All the while sculpting wonders.
What the specific concerns of the record might be I can't really say. Wire have always been too oblique, not to say too smart for me on that score though I consider myself to be reasonably smart. The title Mind Hive alone suggests, if that ever needed to be be doubted, that their concerns remain deeply contemporary as this is such a contemporary idea. They seem to be pretty disappointed at the way things have turned out, the way we've all turned out and frankly I don't blame them. This is an album that exists as much in the here and now as any record being made by people more than half their age.
Mind Hive is truly a wonder, as good a record as any British guitar band will put out this year. Or perhaps anyone else for that matter. In many ways it even sounds to me as if it might be as good a record as even they have ever made. How extraordinary that statement is! Not groundbreaking perhaps in the way that their first three albums, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 certainly were. It's difficult to imagine anyone putting out something truly groundbreaking now. Mind Hive is just a very, very good record like those three were. Wire remain out in front. Their exploring spirit remains an example to all. An example that only the select few will both heed and understand. Quiet, meditative genius.
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