Wire- Red Barked Tree

Red Barked Tree has a strong start but dwindles in strength as it creeps toward the end. The sound is reminiscent of fun '80s pop punk with vocals full of attitude. I even detected a couple hints of Bowie here and there. Where this album starts falling short is in its over-long songs full of with repetitive guitar riffs and lacking significant breaks. I would love to see this band tighten up their music by shortening songs lengths and deploying a guitar solo (or any solo, really) here and there to break up the songs more. Quite frankly, Red Barked Tree burned me out almost immediately after it began. I love Wire's punk sound, but I am a firm believer that to do punk well you need to keep your tracks under three and a half minutes in length. Red Barked Tree is weak, but I have hope that Wire will really find their sound and make some great music in the future.




Final Review- 60