Skip to content
Premieres

Hear Wire’s Rose-Tinted Romance Tribute ‘Love Bends’

Wire 'Love Bends' 'Change Becomes Us' Album 1979 1980 154

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”