Wire

By rights Wire should be a chore but three old geezers, augmented with Margaret Fiedler McGinnis on extra guitar, grip most of the competition by the shoulders and melt their faces. They laugh at pissy-eyed nostalgia freaks who want to hear the jukebox song ('I Am The Fly') or the MBV cover ('Map Ref') or The Big Black cover ('Heartbeat'). Admittedly they do throw the arthritic punks a bone in the shape of '12XU' but mainly they rinse it with new material before turning in a magisterial 'Pink Flag'. This is how it should be done.

JD