Public Image Ltd.'s Metal Box stinks, and it's brilliant

Although he can’t lay claim to releasing the first UK punk single with The Sex Pistols (The Damned beat him with their ’76 classic “New Rose”, he stood out like a sore thumb within the punk scene, educated, opinionated, he was held up as an example of what was wrong (IE right) about the UK in the late ’70’s.

He can also neither be regarded as the very first post punk act, although without Lydon post punk would have been an entirely different beast, Siouxsie & The Banshees released their debut album several months before PiL’s debut. Metal Box, however, is an album which now, even 37 years later, continues to be deeply influential. This deluxe reissue is an explicit reminder why bands from the commercial angle of indie, your Bloc Parties and Interpols to lower down the scale, The Walkmen or Total Control for example, could not exist without this album.

This was a musical interpretation of the UK in 1979, and it stank. To effectively portray the prevalent feeling of hopelessness and disaffection, it needed to sound ugly. Metal Box is disgusting, twisted and deformed, and even though Joy Division beat them to their own musical landmark by several months with Unknown Pleasures, itself the sound of a disenfranchised youth, it remains, if not as well respected as that record, certainly as influential - a dirty fingered Southern counterpart.

The likes of “Careering”, or the ode to Lydon's dying mother “Death Disco” - which landed them a spot on Top Of The Pops - are still particularly staggering pieces of work. The opening track, "Albatross" is a typically Lydon-esque 'fuck you' to Virgin Records who released the album, and certainly not the precise rock of crossover hit "Public Image". This was 11 dank minutes of freeform post punk and angst. To add to this, it came in a damn tin, an actual metal box, which upon coming across it as a nine year old was literally the most exciting thing ever. Jah Wobble’s reggae influenced sub-bass lines were the perfect foil to the ice cold (let’s not say angular) riffs of Keith Levene, which gave rhythm to Lydon’s musings of death and boredom perfectly, making Metal Box a true a milestone in British rock music.