With the acid-folk revival well under way, can the art-rock revival be that far behind? Apparently not, judging by this debut double-EP issue from New York’s Battles, who blend frenetic avant-rock riffing, implausible time-signatures and industrial electronics into uncompromising slabs of sound. Wire could be an even better band, if not for that.The reviews 154 got at the time would make most bands very pleased But I think 154’s deeply flawed Some of it’s fantastic, some of it’s awful and bombastic Wire made huge mistakes right after it We drove the bus straight off the cliff There wasn’t a point when we said, it’s over It just fell apart I think it’s a tragedy of contemporary art. That makes moving forward difficult, so 154 had an element of the last gasp about it The politics in the band had got so bad. I was the youngest, who wrote most of the tunes, and I was the lead singer – a dangerous combination because you’re bound to get bullied Wire can be brutal I felt crushed at times Wire’s been playing power-games for 30 years. I can remember sitting in my bedroom in Watford in 1977, deciding that I had to reinvent rock’n'roll I was going to take out the “‘n’roll” But the beginnings of Wire were more prosaic. Their manner is relaxed and easy, despite a year of the unavoidable proximity that breaks so many relationships on the road. No-one would ever recognise the four characters that stare out from their official website – elegant rent boys threatening violence under a pitch dark railway arch.

If anything is responsible for their unhappy reputation it is surely this fondness for the bleakest aesthetic imaginable, but they are unrepentant.Urbanowicz: “When we did our first website before we got signed it looked the same – all black, minimalist design and so on, because we just wanted something classy that didn’t distract from the music. But the real difference between them is that the atmosphere had changed And Wire were a bunch of fashion victims. We embraced whatever innovations were around.By 154 (1979), things had become more difficult. The band had schismed into pop and anti-pop factions, with Graham and Bruce in the latter Bruce was nervous about where Wire was going artistically Some people in the band were frightened of success.

angular! It amuses me that people who cite Wire as an influence on each generation of angular young British contenders always cite Pink Flag, but Chairs Missing is the angular one. It’s minimal, and it put the rhythm first.People said, in the early 1980s, that those two records sounded like Eighties records, not Seventies ones, because of that. You’re doing something that matters, and people care.When I wrote “Practice Makes Perfect”, I had shivers running up my spine. What makes it different from anything on Pink Flag is that it’s…

And Cabaret Voltaire told us, “You’re the only band in Britain that means anything.” They liked the fact that an experimental attitude was being taken It was a signal that they could move on from punk. By the time I got to Chairs Missing (1978), knowing there was a vehicle for anything I wrote was like I was in a feedback loop with my own culture. And, of course, by 1978, punk’s leading light was going into the same area we were, with Public Image Ltd. If John Lydon hadn’t heard any Wire records, I’d be very surprised!I’d felt, when writing Pink Flag in Watford, that I was on it.