Send

'Send Ultimate' is an archaeology of Wire in the studio between 2000 and 2003, as the band worked on new music for the first time in a decade. This retooled edition of 'Send' gives fresh insight into an exciting chapter for Wire, by expanding the frame around the album and providing a larger context with rare and previously unheard material.

This includes both sides of the '12 Times U' 7-inch vinyl-only collectors' item (those being the '12XU' remixes that initially catalysed Wire's 'Send'-era burst of creativity); unreleased curiosities such as the exercise in hyperkinetic dancefloor lunacy that is 'DJ Fuckoff'; alternate versions of numbers originating in this period that subsequently appeared on 2007's 'Read & Burn 03' EP; and the tracks from the first two (out-of-print) 'Read & Burn' EPs that were omitted from the original album tracklist.

Released in April 2003, 'Send' itself (which has been out of print long enough for it's absence to be a source of frustration to many newer Wire fans) was the band's first full album of new music in over a decade, containing 11 examples of their most caustic and brutally compelling output in twice that time, marking a dramatic and emphatic return to the shot-blasted immediacy and stylistic minimalism of their very earliest material.

The critics concurred:
"Their most direct and focussed performances since their 'Pink Flag' (album) debut."
- The Independent

"Phenomenal - an album of untrammeled power and pre-apocalyptic unease."
- Mojo (5 stars)

"The reconvened Wire sound outrageously on form and up for it."
- The Wire

"Bouncing up and down into the 21st century, the Duracell-battery-powered irritants are back to beat us into submission once more."
- Sunday Times

"Startlingly spirited stuff." - Q