Wire – Mind Hive (2020)

Remember when nothing tops the excitement of the latest release from a hottest new band?

Ripping past the sleeve plastic. Denting the cover sleeve from your enthusiasm. Touching the vinyl grooves directly with your fingers and slamming that album on your parents turntable. All done with the skill and precision of a butcher. Fuck it! You never had to worry about returning the album to the inter-sleeve because that album wouldn’t leave the turntable for weeks. Not until the music left a permanent mark on your soul.

Much of that may seem like blasphemy during the “vinyl resurgence”. Today I see people handling records like they are sacred documents… Holy Grails. Each “artifact” placed inside some ridiculously expensive sleeve. Only to be misfiled between those unplayed Tom Waits albums. Maybe you’ll never see it again.

All I’m saying here is that maybe it was better when we didn’t treat records like newly found scrolls from the Dead Sea.

Of course, none of this enthusiasm is new to a veteran Wire fan, as the band has been inspiring frantic devotion for over four decades now. Wire had already released a trilogy of classic albums (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154) before I had even purchased my first Kiss single (Rocket Ride w/ Ace in lead). It would take me a few years before I found Three Girl Rhumba. Eventually leading to my favorite Wire album, The Ideal Copy (1987). Note: If you are not familiar with this incredible 80s period, do yourself a favor and track down a CD complication called the A List. 21 outstanding tracks from the band’s classic second burst of energy.

Which brings us to the newly released Wire album, Mind Hive. A record busting with ideas and songs that are among the best of their career. Sharp and challenging melodies are punctuated with their brittle angular post-punk guitar sound. The atmosphere throughout the record is dense but bright. Thick with the musical textured environment we expect from master-class innovators like Wire.

The power and immediacy of the opening track, Be Like Them, is visceral. Wire functioning as if it’s 1978 or 1985 or any of their other periods that set the standard.

At a lean 35 minutes, Mind Hive is refreshingly tight and efficient. Never does the band lose the plot or overindulge, each track moves on with focus and purpose. That is never more true on Mind Hive than on the pulsating and elegant centerpiece, ‘Unrepentant‘. A track brimming over with the optimism of the band’s intentions for the future;

In-between the lines
Ancient tales remind
Openings are hard to find
The blind will never lead the blind…
Unrepentant, understanding
Independent, making landing

It is a great lyric and a wonderful statement for all of us to consider. These are demanding times we face together. Be brave, act intelligently and decisively. Challenge the status quo. The music on ‘Unrepentant‘ crackles and shines with Wire’s unique progressiveness. Built on lush waves of electronic synths that create a futuristic, pastoral soundscape, part Berlin era Bowie/Eno, and part pulsating Krautrock.

But it’s really 100% Wire. You can’t fake authenticity. Mind Hive is a dazzling declaration for a group of veteran punk rockers making their 17th album with their integrity and authenticity intact.

by Shawn Ciavattone