Wire have shared the second single from the forthcoming Mind Hive. The 17th studio album to come out of more than 40 years of activity, “Primed & Ready” looks backwards to the year they released their last album Silver/Lead.

“The lyric/text for this song could be read as a series of questions, set in 2017,” says Wire's Graham Lewis. “Who could have known the answers would be, in no particular order…Liverpool FC, me, Boris The Spider, 67, Lieutenant Colonel.”

Meanwhile Colin Newman adds: “Primed & Ready” was the easiest song to write on the album, written in less time than it takes to play it. There’s nothing remotely ‘clever’ about the chord sequence/structure and there’s only three chords, two in the verse and one in the chorus. As in all things Wire ‘less is more’”.

Last year saw the reissue of their groundbreaking first three albums, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154. Later this year a new documentary People In A Film is set to be released. Hive Mind is released on 24 January via pinkflag. UK tour dates can be found on The Wire's listings page.