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Mar 31, 2017The fact that they’ve been cranking out albums as good as this for nearly half a century is a legacy worth appreciating for a really long time.
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The WireJun 2, 2017Wire’s newest material sounds like a figment of where Roxy Music might have gone if Eno had stuck around. This is most evident on the menacing, glamorous swagger of “Forever And A Day”. But the sound, if grounded in the past, is focused on the present. Wire still make distinctly modern, distinctly European music. [Apr 2017, p.59]
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Apr 7, 2017As precise as ever yet oddly moving, Silver/Lead reaffirms that Wire are more like mercury, shape-shifting effortlessly while remaining true to the things that have always made them great.
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Apr 3, 2017Silver / Lead is a record with density but one that is also light on its feet.
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Mar 31, 2017Silver/Lead is an exhibition in restraint whose brilliant corners and burrowing phrases reward both the keen ear and repeated listen.
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Mar 31, 2017Silver/Lead is an accomplished record from a band who continue to challenge their audience.
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Mar 31, 2017It almost as if Wire set out to make a concept album without actually calling it a concept album, so consistent is the sound throughout, and with subtly recurring melodic themes.
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Mar 30, 2017This is a slower, more melancholy Wire, one that finds them at their most melodic and enigmatic.
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Mar 29, 2017As ever, an unmistakable tension to the band, but maybe comfortable would be more accurate. Comfortable in their own skin and comfortably uncomfortable with the harrowing world outside.
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MojoMar 27, 2017The latest dispatch carries on its immediate predecessors' good work with familiar Wire tropes all in place. [Apr 2017, p.91]
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Q MagazineMar 27, 2017Even now, few do it better than Wire. [May 2017, p.112]
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UncutMar 27, 2017"Forever & A Day" sounds suspiciously like a love song, "Sleep On The Wing" has one of those gorgeous Colin Newman vocal performances. Otherwise, it's ominous thrum, insistent rumble and circular tunes that hide menace beneath their logic. [May 2017, p.40]
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Apr 4, 2017There are a few spots on Silver/Lead where Wire succumbs to its own subtlety, as words empty and the tempos deflate toward flatness. But the group catches itself quickly, producing the album’s best track, “Sleep on the Wing.”
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Alternative PressApr 6, 2017Another solid addition to a nearly peerless discography. [May 2017, p.82]
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Apr 5, 2017If the album’s second half falls off a bit due to the programming of consecutive slow burners, the orchestral layering we expect from the quartet is still there.
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Mar 28, 2017The biggest problem with this album is its bloated mid-section, which drags down the commendable peaks of its opening and closing segments.
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Apr 4, 2017They do work up some magic every now and then.
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Mar 31, 2017On these songs [“Playing Harp For The Fishes,” “Short Elevated Period,” and “Diamonds In Cups”], Silver/Lead strikes the perfect balance of moody intrigue and saw-toothed aggression. Unfortunately, the rest of the album isn’t calibrated quite as precisely, which makes for an uneven listening experience.
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Mar 29, 2017Unlike their past efforts, though, Silver/Lead is sluggish when it needs to be spry and dull when it ought to be meditative.
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Apr 4, 2017Nothing really stands out, and the songs that do--the catchy "Short Elevated Period," as well as the two musical highlights of the album, "This Time" and "Sleep on the Wing"--don't leave enough of an impression to be overly impressed by.