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Rating: Just like the duality that permeates the representative texture of new wave, its irreducible Gefüge, so too 154 by Wire, especially when listened to today after its challenging sedimentation in the collective imagination, reveals its undeniable, consubstantial dichotomic dimension.
On one hand, the masterpiece emerges as an anamorphic "material" unfolding (aided by the annihilating plastic allure of the quartet's sound), as a sprawling and synesthetic immersion of punk into industrial experimentation. On the other, it’s a programmatic operation of rejuvenation and refounding of rock, as a lucid metalinguistic inference. Its hermetic “soul” is felt through that quality, which we might call pervasive but never invasive hyperrealism, austere composure, no waste of notes, by virtue of which every line, every segment of the work refers to a precise and convincing idea of the perception of the sensible that, though supra-empirical and ultra-realistic, is perfectly superimposable to the phenomenal.
The demiurgic audacity, the absolute manipulativeness (the abyssal profusion of crossfades, the pinpoint use of significant detail) becomes the natural absolute. The postmodern screen finds in this music the most antonomastic of concretizations.
154 is the Zeitgeist at a low degree of formalization, punk treated in a serial bric-a-brac workshop, a caravanserai of the heteroclite, 154 generations enslaved by perishable matter. It amazes for its effective and compact impression of reality, also amazes for the airy freedom of its experiments, for the disruptive glaciality of its cadences, for the pagan vigor of its figures. Supreme and definitive declaration of poetics, elaborate authorial cogitation, it also perplexes for the generous abundance of its cultural references: partly a cyberpunk declination, partly a theoretical variation on Lang's romance, 154 is an aqueous anabasis of massive doses of Stirnerian mysticism and a piling up of Oedipal echoes. But it is above all an extreme attempt to give life, through a heart of darkness, to a music balancing between decadent ambitions and alien immensity, between anti-spectacular virtuosic display and intellectual grandeur. A solid and prismatic body which is not harmed, in the current length, by the psychologistic digressions and the powerful Jungian suggestion linked to the key concept of shadow.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 I Should Have Known Better (03:52)
In an act of contrition
I lay down by your side
It's not your place to comment
On my state of distress
For this is for real
I've tears in my eyes
Am I laughing or crying?
I suggest I'm not lying
I haven't found a measure yet to
Calibrate my displeasure yet so
To ignore my warning
Could be your folly
The judgment is harsh
I offer no plea
Valuing the vengeance which you treasure
I've redefined the meaning of vendetta
The procession's disordered
You protect your possessions
In light of your actions
I question your love
May I make an observation
Your bite is worse than my aggression
I should have known better
I should have known better
Than to become a target
Albeit a target which moves
No offer of terms or concessions
For statements or confessions
You don't feel warm
I pass close by
You shiver, I whisper
Excuse me, what's your problem?
Oh, I see
I should have known better
02 Two People in a Room (02:10)
Two people in a room
Facial movements betray
A private display
Of nervous disorder
And mutual torture
Two people in a room
Bloody image is conjured
But no one is injured
The weapons are chosen
But the action is frozen
Two people in a room
Positions are shifted
The ceasefire uplifted
The lighting is fierce
It's intended to pierce
Any cloak of deceit
And encourage retreat
And God they're so gifted
My God they're so gifted
03 The 15th (03:05)
Reviewed, it seemed
As if someone were watching over it
Before it was
As if response were based on fact
Providing, deciding, it was soon there
Squared to it, faced to it, it was not there
Renewed, it fought
As if it had a cause to live for
Denied, it learned
As if it had sooner been destroyed
Providing, deciding, it was soon there
Squared to it, faced to it, it was not there
Reviewed, it fought
As if someone were watching over it
Before it had sooner been denied
Renewed, it seemed
As if it had a cause to live for
Destroyed, it was later based on fact
04 The Other Window (02:07)
He took his seat on the foreign train
He thought it pleasant to travel again
Mindful of the journey's end
He read again the letter from his friend
Time passed as it often does
The seat was hard, the carriage fetid
He was dressed for summer, but still he sweated
It was better than being home
Feeling the cold, and living alone
Time passed slowly
Around him people spoke in French
Despite schooldays it made no sense
Occasional stares caught his eye
He was tempted to smile, but
Being shy, time passed
When he looked through the window
For the thousandth time
He saw a black horse fighting for its life
In a barbed wire fence
Fatally tangled
The more it struggled
The more it was strangled
Time sped up
He turned away
There was nothing he could do
The other window
Had a nicer view
Time passed painfully
05 Single K.O. (02:23)
I've found something
No one else is looking for
I've found something
That there's no use for
And what's more
I'm keeping it to myself
I'm leaning over backwards
Shoulders pressed to the floor
I'm leaning over backwards
Shoulders pressed to the door
Two falls or one submission
Or a single K.O.
Two falls or one submission
Or a single K.O.
But what's one submission
Amongst friends?
06 A Touching Display (06:55)
With all the front
And more besides
Bitch, thrust, and parry
And a few asides
With considerable charm
You chose not to decide
I really like you
Becomes my massage
I really want you
Becomes my message
But how long can we sustain
Ourselves apart?
The pressure's increasing it
Squeezes my heart
I bought a ticket
You took a walk
So much to say
We're unable to talk
Suffering in silence
Our eyes give it away
So close as we part
A touching display
Colouring my thoughts
Predominately grey and
Fighting bravely
Will she save me?
From what or who
I do not know
07 On Returning (02:06)
You'll be sorry when the sun has roasted you to
Lobster red, nothing said
When yellow has turned green to brown, divide by four
Multiply by nine, describe your divisions, anatomical derision
Lobster head and lobster feet
On arriving with a third language
Tucked into your brief case, next to your toothbrush
Along with a copy of the Nouvelle Observateure
While your sons and daughters who registered naught
Under intensive electronic scanning
You regard your body with regard to events
With which nothing planned
Never lacked a sense of theatre
On returning with the tab you've gained
A head of world service, the best of your culture
An evening of fun in the metropolis of your dream
08 A Mutual Friend (04:28)
As a mutual friend it was difficult to pretend
That I was anything less than concerned
Hearing of your troubles
Has forced me to double
My interest in your current affairs
It's no use despising a new unknown horizon
Now your son has set his sights on the moon
So precipitous a decision has clouded your vision
And altered the pitch of your tune
Please don't turn a deaf ear to the noises you hear
While savagely your love you prune
For he might replace the old with the moon
He might replace the old with the moon
In March, April, May, and June
July, August, September, soon
He might replace the old with the moon
It could be October
November, or even December
So in January and February remember
He might replace the old with the moon
He might replace the old quite soon
09 Blessed State (03:28)
Closing doors
Opens eyes
To the fatal gift
Of a well timed lie
Loved in the flesh
And (but) butchered in the mind
Oh what a pearl
What a well made world
Holy globe
Eternal home
Sacred sphere
So glad I'm here
Oh what a pearl
What a well made world
10 Once Is Enough (03:23)
It's sinister
I'd attempt a casual structure
Preceding interaction
Symphonic in persuasion
Noblesse oblige
Each minister
Is just a drop compared with
Having double vision
It's desirable in part
Refuse the ruse
Deciding each devise
If you don't think twice
Once is enough, once is enough
Preparing its demise
It's something you'll devise
Once is enough, once is enough
In passing
You sprang a leak instead
You'd sooner see its piety
You'd replied in its course
Before you
Resume transmission
You retiring
I'll respond with curtained thought
A pause for intermission
My advise is simple
12 Indirect Enquiries (03:36)
You gained respect as we passed
Not a wave, a gestured wink
I was forced to think
I couldn't ignore
I've seen you before
Joking aside, face to face
It's the one I cannot place
A hint might enlarge your imprint
I think I've had a taste of a savoury
Denial would be a waste
Lying prone
Hiding in a column, between SALE and ZDRK
Sky, sand, and moorland, shepherd's delight
But not in the sun
Which stops you from walking
I might find you
But I lack the patience
Passed a corner, you'd been stolen
Ate a meal, you'd been defaced
13 40 Versions (03:28)
I never know which version I'm going to be
I seem to have so many choices open to me
It's not hard to see another unique event
When you miss the beginning and you miss the end
I've got forty versions all dying to get the part
And so with a change of mind comes a change of heart
A total eclipse arrives now and Niagara Falls
No loss of blood yet and no further calls
I never know which version I'm going to be
I get the feeling my mind is deceiving me
In between are where only edges can be seen of the spaces
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