Wire - Silver/Lead

The Quietus

In December, Wire’s Pink Flag – post-punk’s archetypal overture of refined enigma and neurosis – will celebrate its 40th anniversary. An opening gambit that brazenly contorted punk with art-rock cunning and obscurist, almost literary flair, it introduced a band who have, time and time and time again, re-established themselves as pioneers with zero intention of bowing to the whims of nostalgia or legacy. Almost half a century on from launching their reductionist sonic manifesto, album number 15 sees the London quartet at their most assured, yet contemplative since 2010’s stellar Red Barked Tree.

Doubling up as their fourth studio album in five years, Silver/Lead continues a potent hit-rate from the band, as well as a trend that has been something of a calling card of theirs since regrouping back in 1999. Whilst inhabiting familiar terrain – rhythmically rigid efforts framed by masterfully opaque lyrical ambiguity – it’s in Wire’s deceptively hook-heavy refrains and textural exploration where they continue to prosper like few others. For a band whose extant trajectory is precisely posited by their PR as “uniquely addictive,” Silver/Lead is an exhibition in restraint whose brilliant corners and burrowing phrases reward both the keen ear and repeated listen.

Opening on the sweeping panorama of ‘Playing Harp For The Fishes’ – an ill-omened early peak that distils frontman Colin Newman’s time-tested bent for marrying placid tones with cautionary words – the best moments here, from the synth-driven buzz and chug of ‘Diamonds in Cups’ to breakneck lead single ‘Short Elevated Period’, opts for pop-centric minimalism that resists the itch to outsmart itself. With the latter track, in particular, alongside the defiant ‘This Time’ (with its tip of the hat to ‘I Am The Fly’ from Chairs Missing) proving especially compelling highlights wielding simplicity like a scythe, Wire’s cultivated craft doesn’t as much earworm than excavate one’s inner lobe with the aim of permanent residence.

But celebrating such cultivated minimalism shouldn’t underplay the exploration here that – paired with Graham Lewis’ wily lyrical conundrums throughout – pushes Silver/Lead into must-listen territory. Whether you look to the opener’s underlying sea of searing guitar lines, the processed tonal swells of the album’s stirring closing title track or the whale-song patterns of ‘Brio’, Newman and co. continue to exhume new sonic ground in recognisable landscapes. And in an industry all but dictated by kneejerk changeability, there's something thoroughly comforting in just considering the existence of a band like Wire, who – as they mark their 40th year – must now be recognised as one of the most consistent British bands of all time.

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(Pink Flag)

After mapping out post-punk with their first three albums in the 1970s, and taking various excursions since, Wire’s 16th continues the Indian summer that began Change Becomes Us in 2013. They may not take the brave leaps into new territories they once did, but instead explore the detail in the terrain they themselves uncovered. Thus, repetitive rhythms nestle alongside walls of fuzz. However, this is a slower, more melancholy Wire, one that finds them at their most melodic and enigmatic. As ever, it requires more than a thesaurus to unravel lyrics such as “Skippering a skiff, in the typhoon season” and “Have you got a shed of ions?” But Diamond Cups and A Short Elevated Period are some of the strongest tunes they’ve ever done. The faster-paced latter song sees – as an old compilation was once titled – Wire play pop, but in a manner that pushes at the form, with a chorus only arriving at the end. Wire continue to thrive on their own terms.

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This year marks the 40th anniversary of Wire’s debut, the post-punk landmark Pink Flag. Its combination of sharp minimalism and unorthodox approaches—especially in lyrics which drove at meaning while dodging it—formed a blueprint for a band who through many stops, rebirths, and realignments have remained hard to pin down. Even their latter-day, more straightforward records contain levels that take work to penetrate.

Musically, Silver/Lead is as straightforward as Wire gets. Every song is streamlined, with solid (mostly mid-tempo) beats, clear melodies, and smooth, subdued vocals (mostly from Colin Newman). There are few surprises in individual songs—some even sound like variations on each other—but each one holds something memorable. On that level, Silver/Lead is a well-made rock record by a band who knows how to make rock records well.

It’s in Graham Lewis’ lyrics where Silver/Lead becomes more of a puzzle. His lines are always tricky to decipher, yet they’re never so vague as to be meaningless. You get the sense that plots are furthered and points are made, but the messages and scenarios are too slippery to be locked into one interpretation. That effect is enhanced by Newman’s sinewy voice. He often sounds like he’s spinning a riddle rather than speaking directly to you.

There is one line that gives a clue as to what Silver/Lead is about: “The path that is progress is under repair.” Throughout the album’s 10 tracks, our narrator seems intent on moving forward, but is unsure how, or whether it’s even possible. References to roads and motion make the album feel like a travelogue; there are multiple songs featuring boats and rivers. But Silver/Lead also poses questions it can’t quite answer. As “Short Elevated Period,” one of the album’s few up-tempo tracks, puts it: “My reasons for living were under review...Standing in the road, where would I go to?”

This tension between wanting to move and wondering how to do it enlivens songs that might otherwise feel inert. The pep talk of “Diamonds in Cups” (“The course of creation is often quite strange/Keep your mind open, be willing to change”) gains energy from uncertainty. A similar pressure emerges in “This Time,” which admits that “some folks claim they know all the answers” yet still insists “This time it’s going to be better.” One track, “An Alibi,” is nothing but questions, though its pessimism feels buoyed by the music’s confident swing.

There are a few spots on Silver/Lead where Wire succumbs to its own subtlety, as words empty and the tempos deflate toward flatness. But the group catches itself quickly, producing the album’s best track, “Sleep on the Wing.” Another exercise in self-encouragement, the song projects conviction as an answer regardless of what the question is. In other hands, a chorus like “Upward and inward, outward and forward/Sleep on the wing, fly through the night” could sound like a Hallmark card. But for Wire, it’s the well-earned release on an album that’s much tenser than it appears.