Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Object Of Desire, 13 Jul 2008
We all have our favourite bands that have never gained the recognition that they deserve. Wire is definitely such a band. If they hadn't been so determined to challenge their live audiences in the late 70's perhaps they would have had the success of, say, Blur. Wire have, over 4 decades, consistently re-evaluated, changed and managed to slot into the musical landscape of the time without straying too far from the Wire identity and whilst creating excellent music at every turn. We had no right to expect 21st century Wire to provide music that was of more than a passing interest but Read and Burn 1 & 2 and Send astounded with music that met the challenge of a back catalogue that has been a major influence of many bands. For me this year's Read & Burn 3 was a little disapointing but Object 47 sees Wire back at the top of their game. Tuneful, noisy and driving, reflecting this decade not some past glory. Male guitar bands have generally left me cold over the last 15 years but Wire (predominantly drums and guitar) are still using the genre to remain challenging and creative. One star lost as the CD is only 35 mins long. One of the top ten bands that this country has ever produced. Franz Ferdinand et al, listen and weap.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wire- Object 47 Review (8.7/10), 4 Jul 2008
Wire's career is a microcasm. From the stripped down beginnings on Pink Flag to the avant-influenced oddball experiments on Chairs Missing and finally the full fledged leap into the unknown with 154, their first three albums pretty much define how punk developed into post-punk before the latter even really had a name. Even after their hiatus, their return in the late 80's epitomized the sound that post-punk had turned into, embracing pop and dance music to create "New Wave." This is why you couldn't be surprised by their second reformation in the 00's. Post Punk had indeed entered another stage in it's timeline (the "revival" stage, popularized by bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Futureheads), and it's creators, who seemingly have been documenting it's evolution ever since, had to have their say.
And so, 5 years after capturing the post-punk revival movement in it's aggressively youthful abandon with Send, they've returned with the much more melodious Object 47, defining how most of the post-punk revivalists have embraced higher production values and tamed down their approach (Bloc Party, British Sea Power and even Interpol don't sound nearly as energetic and frantic as they once were). The difference is, much like the soft-spoken A Bell is A Cup..., Object 47 does it right.
The proof lies in the album's electrifying contradictions. This is music that, when picked apart, reveals menacing tenseness and industrialism. "All Fours" rolls in on a classically Wire-esque single-chord bash, that gets exceptionally assaulted by a vicious bridge of noise and feedback. "Circumspect" is drugged up and strung out to dry, decadence and distance embodied in the form of listless guitar figures. But, ironically, looking at Wire's latest offering from a distance reveals nothing but a bunch of condensed pop tunes. The tightly-wound guitars may be focused on forming walls of dissonance and repetition, but unlike their last album, the band uses these ear-piercing textures in order to pen some infectious hooks. "Perspex Icon" couldn't be more memorable, contrasting a vocal that borders on whimpering with layers of brisk and fervent post punk guitars. And tracks like "Mekon Headman" or "One of Us" have choruses that will lodge themselves in your brain for weeks.
On modern electro-buzzing tracks like "Hard Currency" it becomes especially easy to guess that the producer in question is Flood (Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails), a craftsman who has been known in the past to dwell in that spot between abrasive squalor and catchiness. There are moments that Flood's mainstream flirtations are made far too apparent (the dark highway driving anthem, "Four Long Years" is a little too close to Depeche Mode for comfort and "Are You Ready" desperately needs to get away from its sterile production), but Wire is a band that has proven to hold up to change remarkably well, and with Object 47 they continue to triumphantly hold the torch up for post punk. (Aron Fischer)
For fans of: Nine Inch Nails, Blonde Redhead, Franz Ferdinand, Futureheads
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wire - Bruce Gilbert = WIR, 26 Aug 2008
When I first heard Read & Burn 03, I thought, here's something that is significantly different from the previous album, Send, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why other than to say, I thought the guitar portion was weak. I recall reading that guitarist, Bruce Gilbert, left the band a few years ago, but without a listing of band members, on said EP, it slipped.
Along comes Object 47 with the listing of the new Wire and indeed, no Bruce Gilbert. Is this a terrible thing? No, not really. Wire had an incarnation as WIR (dropping the E) to indicate that Robert Grey was not present on The First Letter, and that was an excellent album... certainly one of the best from the late 80s and early 90s line-up. Perhaps the band should have renamed itself it again to indicate this is not the full original band.
Object 47 is more like collaboration between Colin Newman and Graham Lewis than it is a true Wire album. After all, without Bruce Gilbert's distinctive guitar work, is it really Wire? But this is an excellent album all the same; it's just that it takes some time getting used to (as did previous collaborations between Lewis and Gilbert did under the band name, Dome). As a previous reviewer stated, it might come off as 'boring' at first, but stick with it. Newman and Lewis are quite talented and have pulled off quite a miracle considering the loss of their lead guitarist.
I gave it 4-stars (because it is hard to put this on level of Send, Pink Flag, Missing Chairs and 154). Had I reviewed it when I first heard it, it would have been 3. Who knows? After another month and after becoming more accustomed to it, it may rate higher still. In the end, anything from Newman and/or Lewis is better than 90% of everything else out there.
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