Wire & Glass review in Times

[Brian Cady]

>From The Times:
http://tinyurl.com/kaso7

Hope I get a record out before I get old
The Who's first new single in 24 years proves that
mature bands don't always need to update their sound,
argues Paddy Jansen 
 
The Who's first proper record in 24 years is nothing
so humdrum as a single. Wire & Glass, out on Monday,
is a "mini-opera", a suite of six thematically linked
songs with a radio-unfriendly running time of 11
minutes, 26 seconds. Pete Townshend describes the
songs as a soundtrack to a "novella", his
semi-autobiographical The Boy Who Heard Music, which
he started publishing on his website last year.
 
As more and more bands follow the comeback trail,
spare a thought for the ones who scuppered their
revivals by bringing out new material, when all their
fans wanted was the comfort of familiarity. Duran
Duran's hits compilation Greatest lodged in the Top
Ten for several weeks after they stole the show at the
2004 Brit Awards, but there were few takers for the
subsequent Astronauts, their first album featuring the
original line-up since 1984. 
 
The Who were one of the few highlights of Live 8 and
remain a potent force as a live act, belting out
classics such as Won't Get Fooled Again. But will
anyone be interested in their first album since the
lacklustre It's Hard in 1982 when it comes out in
October? On the evidence of Wire & Glass, the answer
is yes. 

The dilemma facing returning veterans is whether or
not to update a sound which risks seeming antique to
the iTunes generation. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
had some of their biggest bust-ups over Jagger's habit
of roping in trendy producers such as the Dust
Brothers to work with the Stones. Yet their most
successful album for years, A Bigger Bang last year,
self-consciously returned to the Stones' staples of
raunch and riffage. 

Perhaps following the Stones' lead, The Who of Wire &
Glass sound more like The Who than at any point since
the mid-Seventies, despite the absence of two
seemingly vital elements — the drummer Keith Moon and
bassist John Entwistle. It's their 1973 rock opera
Quadrophenia that it recalls most strongly, but the
tightness and attack in the playing suggests the
booze-soaked frenzy of superstar self-pity The Who by
Numbers, from 1975. 

Townshend has always liked to bend old material into
new shapes. Wire & Glass rehearses ideas about a
"global wire network" and music's unifying potential
that date from his abandoned 1970 film project
Lifehouse, the soundtrack for which formed the basis
of Who's Next. Its "plot" involves an ageing rocker
called Ray High (first encountered on Townshend's 1993
solo album Psychoderelict) and his relationship with
three supernaturally gifted children, Gabriel, Josh
and Leila, who form a band called (J. D. Salinger fans
take note) the Glass Household. 

It's all faintly preposterous. But there's something
great about it too; something noble in Townshend's
belligerent insistence that there's nothing the novel,
say, can achieve that rock music can't. At 61, he
seems to have been revitalised as a creative force by
his relationship with the singer-songwriter Rachel
Fuller, hailed by Who fans as a sort of anti-Yoko. 

The only shame is that it's taken him so long to come
up with new songs for The Who — despite the best
efforts of the session bassist Pino Palladino, you
miss the rococo rumble of Entwistle, who died in 2002.
And while Townshend's playing is incendiary,
62-year-old Roger Daltrey's voice has inevitably lost
some of its range and power. 

Beggars can't be choosers, though, and whatever the
limitations of Wire & Glass, it's still way better
than anyone had a right to expect. The kids were all
right. But the old geezers are doing fine, too. 

Wire & Glass is released on Monday on Polydor


-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com