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Public Image Limited. The acronym under which John Lydon (the former Rotten of the Sex Pistols) chose to conceal himself along with his "companions of Dub and misery" Keith Levene (ex-Clash), Jah Wobble, and Jim Walker, on guitar, bass, and drums respectively.
The four focused the post-Pistols sound during the distant months of '78, aligning themselves with the new contemporary waves of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Magazine, yet remaining firmly impressed by the Kraut Rock of Can and the Dub solutions coming from Jamaica, where Lydon had recently vacationed. Towards the end of the year, the band, united and inspired, entered the recording studios to present to the world the "new creature" post-punk revolution: the single "Public Image".
A sparse sound, minimal, powerful yet melodic, that certainly did not prelude to a devastating follow-up like "First Issue", (L.P. Virgin Records) released at Christmas of '78. Exhausting bass lines, sharp guitars dealt as "chainsaws", harrowing and lacerating vocals, with a groovy and straightforward Garage rock style drumming. An overwhelming impact, made particularly evident by the songs' "structures": deviant choruses, Punk rhythms with Dub intentions, harmonic lines that were not very melodic and quite dissonant, with an underlying repetitiveness that kept it all fresh and experimental. Among the very interesting titles is the assaultive opener "Theme", with 10 minutes of harassment and paranoia, the fantastic polemic of "Religion 2", built on just 2 harmonic cycles, the aforementioned single "Public Image", and the closing novelty of "Fodderstompf", in which the band sets distortion aside and embarks on a disco/dub journey that would be better developed in the following "Metal Box" (L.P. Virgin Records, 1979).
All in all, the album was a real failure (not exactly a commercial sound..), but the innovative strength expressed by its alienating tones laid some fundamental foundations in musical language, which became an inspiration for bands (in turn important) like Bauhaus, Killing Joke, Massive Attack, U2, Godflesh, Nirvana, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, and so forth.
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