**BACK IN STOCK**

Having spent the four-and-a-half years since the May 2003 release of Send, their last full length studio album, consolidating and reappraising their back catalogue (by means of CD and DVD releases and re-releases of their '70s material) and for the most part remaining out of the public eye, Wire have nonetheless not been creatively idle. Although drawing on a resource pool of material developed over the entire post-Send period, Read & Burn 03 benefits substantially from a concentrated creative effort and newly defined aesthetic sense developed since mid-2006. Wire, ever multi-layered, ever redefined, is evolving yet again. No greater indication of the seismic shift in Wire's intentions can be given than the very fact that the first track on the band's first utterance for almost five years is nearly 10 minutes long!

The fertile creative seam hit over the latter part of 2006 continues to be mined, and although Read & Burn 03 stands as a body of work in its own right, it is but the finished part of the larger set of material from which Wire will draw the next album. Note, however, that no material from Read & Burn 03 will be included on the next Wire album. Read & Burn 03 is NOT a part installment: it stands in its own right.