P.I.L.
That What Is Not

THE REVIEW

The clothes don't make the man, says an old proverb, and never has this saying been more true than in this case. As beautiful as the cover is with its "veiled" double meaning, the music is just as dull and boring from this Sex Pistols alumnus, who, no one knows how, was kissed by fortune a decade earlier along with the sexy pistols. Music with a high level of repetitiveness, with riffs as soft as a pat of butter exposed to the August sun, sung in an infuriatingly monotone manner by a "singer" who always looks like he's mocking you (but after all, the persona he built is just this, so why change?!).

Impossible to listen to a second time unless you're a devotee of the genre or a jerk of the worst kind (like those who will respond indignantly in the comments below...). The tracks are flat and almost indistinguishable from one another and exude such boredom that, as a reaction, it almost makes you laugh to think about how many millions of people John Lydon and company have fooled over years and years of punk militancy... It was said "the great rock'n'roll swindle", before and after, I add, indeed with this album which, heard after years, has numbed me beyond measure. Clever of them or morons us? A pity for the cover, a true "cult" of '80s graphic design, referenced and reproduced in the best books of the genre. Truly a pity. That What Is Not: holy words!!