Wire @ The Mash House, Edinburgh, 6 Nov

Wire are not a band out to please anyone. While not outright antagonistic, they make no concessions to fans' expectations (coming on at 9 with no support left some a little miffed). The cosy Mash House quickly becomes an oven when they do arrive, creating an intimate feel that is curiously devoid of atmosphere.

Forty years after the release of their landmark debut Pink Flag, the band have a rich and varied pantheon of material to draw from. Silver/Lead, released earlier this year, makes up almost half the set and generally makes for the best sounding songs (Playing Harp for the Fishes, Short Elevated Period). There's a smattering of tracks from elsewhere in their discography but, despite a couple of punkier cuts like Three Girl Rhumba and Red Barked Tree, they tend to hue towards the more laconic style that the band now employs.

Wire have toyed with genre over the course of their four decades, and they're now a long way from the punk/post-punk scenes that they helped to create in the late '70s. After largely forgettable experiments with new wave in the late '80s, the band re-emerged in 1999 and have now moved on, after an initial return to visceral punk (Read & Burn 01/02), to more thoughtful, experimental art rock. This constant reinvention and creativity is what makes them a fascinating band on record, but it means that their live show largely conforms to their present sound.

The sound set-up tonight is best utilised during the set-closing feedback session of Over Theirs, but elsewhere it frequently swallows up Colin Newman's now soft-spoken lyricism which makes for a frustrating listen at times. The crowd are generally receptive, though there are a couple of heckles about playing “a fast one” or “an old one”. The band don't care, with Graham Lewis adding sarcastically that “it wasn't funny in 1977...” Used To provides the highlight of the encore and the band leaves to a solid, if not emphatic, applause.