From the burning passion of You Will Always Be My Home to the petulant entreaties of Break My Heart Slowly, Wire's words transcend the odd mix of spoken-word intros, graceful rock guitars and eccentric post punk rhythms. They're not attacking the zeitgeist - just tickling its soft underbelly and sneering at its lack of charm.  Full text...

Oddly for a bassist, the album has a brittle, toppy sound, with Wire eschewing bass for a variety of guitar styles, from folk-rock to shambling C86 indie-rock to an approximation of Neu!'s Krautrock "motorik" style on the instrumental "Sehnsucht".   Full text...

If your only memory of the Manic Street Preachers has been the 'post-Richey' period - an era of increasingly bland and uninspired albums epitomised by the rather too polished Lifeblood - then you could be forgiven for wondering exactly what the fuss is about the Welsh rockers.   Full text...

Wire, true to his socialist ideals, sings in a drone to match Ken Livingstone, while songs such as the title track, The Shining Path, and Goodbye Suicide can charitably be described as thirtysomething juvenilia. Nonetheless, this collection possesses a quirky charm.  Full text...