There is little fat on the bones of Pink Flag. Wire's debut album, released in 1977, contains 21 tracks but whistles past in a blur of accelerated punk. Much of Pink Flag is an exercise in subtraction, the band exploring how much they could remove from a song without completely killing it. If punk was a reaction against the flourishes, indulgences and the technical musicianship of prog rock - music stripped back to its essential components - Wire seemed to be more interested in punk as an intellectual exercise as opposed to a simple act of rebellion.
You get the impression that, even as they were making Pink Flag, Wire were already keen to get somewhere else and explore something new. Pink Flag was already peeking out beyond the constraints of punk, suggesting that Wire possessed a bigger musical palette than their contemporaries and had better ideas. This was duly confirmed with the release of their next album, the brilliant Chairs Missing.
The band would spend much of their career largely ignoring Pink Flag, instead dedicating themselves to continually forging forward, never wishing to repeat themselves. Wire were not interested in nostalgia, and as a result they would rarely revisit any of their work once it had been physically released.
