Wire are set to release their 13th album on March 26 via their own Pinkflag label, but Change Becomes Us isn’t your standard late-career entry for a gang of post-punk giants.
Work on the 13-song set really began back in 1979 — the same fertile-but-fraught period that resulted in their enduring classic 154. When the London band broke up a year later, the blueprints of several songs-in-the-making were left behind. Last year, Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Robert Grey, and new guitarist Matthew Simms (guess which one he is in the photo) repaired to a studio in Wales to build something entirely new out of the dusted-off scraps.
At the top of the year, we heard “Doubles & Trebles,” a darkly grinding sorta sci-fi intro to Change, and now we have a markedly different glimpse at the new old material. “Love Bends” is upbeat in both literal rhythm and lyrical tone, a rose-tinted take on romance as something that “straightens the road,” “dives for pearls” and “lightens the load.” Stereogum had the premiere, and Brooklyn Vegan has provided the stream below:
Wire, Change Becomes Us track list:
1. “Doubles & Trebles”
2. “Keep Exhaling”
3. “Adore Your Island”
4. “Re-invent Your Second Wheel”
5. “Stealth of a Stork”
6. “B/W Silence”
7. “Time Lock Fog”
8. “Magic Bullet”
9. “Eels Sang”
10. “Love Bends”
11. “As We Go”
12. “& Much Besides”
13. “Attractive Space”