★★★☆☆
Forty years after their debut masterpiece, Pink Flag, the post-punk pioneers Wire continue to combine unusual lyrical themes with a few simple musical ideas to great effect. Their 15th album finds the singer Colin Newman "frying in Heaven, diving to Hell", whatever that means, over heavily sustained guitar notes on Playing Harp for the Fishes, and the ghost of Berlin-era Bowie hangs over the neon starkness of Sonic Lens.

A lot of this zips by in an interesting if not entirely engaging fashion, although Short Elevated Period, reminiscent of Brian Eno’s early solo material and just as exciting, is a fuzzed-out guitar thrash containing the wonderful line "my reasons for living were under review".

Wire have been a consistent