Wire - Send

I'd forgotten that I'd pre-ordered this one and so was nicely surprised when the postie handed it to me this morning. As I expected, it's impact is lessened because most of the tracks are already on the terrific Read and Burn EPs and none of the 'new' ones are more exciting than Spent or The Art of Stopping. Over a full CD length (and with the extra live CD) the barrage of hard guitars and croaky shouting tires itself out too quickly. They're older, angrier, more intense and showing off how hard they can be. Instead, I wish they'd show a little bit of the softness they used to deploy alongside of all the 12XU thrash.