BY JORDAN MAINZER

Mere hours removed from reflecting on the surprisingly serene nature of many of the songs on Wire’s latest album Mind Hive, seeing their set Wednesday at Metro, I was reassured that they’re still practicing their old tricks as a live band. With driving, noisy guitars, they concentrated mostly on the harsher songs from Mind Hive, like “Be Like Them”, “Primed and Ready”, hilarious joke “Oklahoma”, and 8-minute “Hung”, which rode on a wave of harmonics to the set’s encore. In terms of their classics, they were blistering: Chairs Missing highlights “A Question of Degree”, “French Film Blurred”, and “Outdoor Miner”, Pink Flag untouchable “Ex Lion Tamer”, and the jubilant “Former Airline”. Set closer “A Touching Display” saw bassist Graham Lewis slamming on his pedals as the song descended into all-encompassing noise. Still, they did highlight some of the softer guitar textures of older material, like “The Offer”, “German Shepherds”, Manscape’s “Morning Bell”, and for new songs, Mind Hive instant classic “Cactused”. The best moments of the night? When, after playing an oldie, Lewis, cranky as ever, said, “Enough of that, ‘We don’t play anything old...Older than yesterday is old!” Oh, and when he wished a happy birthday to Metro founder/owner Joe Shanahan before walking off stage.