Search - Various Artists :: Whore: Tribute to Wire

Beautiful images & sounds

RockerDad | Renton, WA USA | 08/08/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a phenomenal tribute album to the seminal post-punk British band Wire. From the gorgeous images that adorn the album pages (which remind me of some of the work of Vaughan Oliver and V23 for 4AD records) to the very high-caliber music included, tribute albums do not get any better than this. Certainly there are arguably a few tracks that might not be to your liking, but pretty much every band/musician involved seemed highly inspired, and wanted to contribute some quality music.



From the more well known acts (Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Mike Watt from the Minutemen, and Laika) to the truly obscure (Scanner, The Ex-Lion Tamers, Polar Bear, and Main), this album covers the spectrum of musical styles. Sure, all are generally of a rock/electronica vein-but beyond that, there is a lot of diverse sounds here. And with only a couple of exceptions, most of the songs do stray pretty far from the originals as well.



Chris Connelly turns in an extremely odd, yet fitting, cover of 'A Mutual Friend' that is like some out-of-tune opera aria by an alien transvestite. Very strange-hilarious and disturbing at once. Lush do their glistening pop/rock thing here in their version of 'Mannequin'-I love the 'la-la-la's' they do. '12XU' has never sounded more different than the version Spasm (who??) do here. By no means is this a traditional punk take on the song-very electronic and slow. Laika's cover of 'German Shepherds' is one of the best things they've ever recorded.



And yes-this album is about the only place you'll find an actual song by a reunited My Bloody Valentine. And yes, it is exquisite. Sheer bliss to listen to. It actually makes their disappearance from the music world even harder to bear-it's that good.



If you are a hard-core Wire addict, you should be open minded enough to enjoy the very different versions of their songs included here. If you are unfamiliar with Wire, but were drawn here by a specific band/s, this is, with limited exceptions, well worth your time-and you hopefully will be encouraged to go discover Wire, the band, properly."