Public Image Ltd.
Second Edition

The original name of the album ("Metal Box") comes from the circular metal packaging in which the album was sold immediately after its release, 'metal box,' an adjective, a concept that perfectly encapsulates the atmosphere experienced during the 50 minutes of this small decadent and dark work.

'Post-punk,' that is the definition critics have coined to describe the furious yet experimental and alienated sound of Pil, an immense minimal orgy of sounds and clinking, where punk is revisited by the same crazy artist who brought it to the masses a few years earlier (John Lydon, ex-Johnny Rotten), gutted, its pulsating soul is extracted and implanted in a different context, the fury remains, the sense of discomfort, the desire for rebellion wanes, the subversive nature gives way to a fatalistic and 'abandonment' mindset, of which Lydon elevates himself to prophet.

Press the play button, the first track, "Albatross", starts, and it's already a masterpiece: persistent and at the forefront bass, jazzy drums, heavily effected and distorted guitar, Lydon reciting with a funereal tone verses of damnation and madness. It feels like being locked inside the 'metal box,' wandering aimlessly, searching for some marker that indicates a minimum of rationality, but instead, you continue between the sharp and distorted notes of the guitar, hammered by the bass beats, which like a blow to the back of the head makes you lose all sense of time and space, leaving you completely disoriented.

After eight minutes of visionary madness, the evil seems to have passed, but "Memories" is there, in the vein of the first track, with Lydon's voice even more disordered and crazed, accompanied by the usual orgy of noises and pulsations and a little keyboard tune that leads us further into the unknown. It's dark now within the metal box; still dazed from the blows received, we are forced to walk using our hands, but the floor is covered with nails and shards of glass, which infiltrate into our flesh and tear nerves and convictions. It's time for "Swan Lake".

Here, industrial percussion bursts in forcefully, stone-pelting ears and synapses, and it feels like walking along the cold and unknown walls of the metal box. The bass is always there, never stops pulsating, not even for a second, offering no respite, not even when the track seems to be ending in a violent and unreal explosion.

"Poptones" resumes the industrial rhythms of the previous track, expanding its horizons and destroying any barrier, and thus an avalanche of samples and recorded and processed sounds invades the desolated metal box, leaving only devastation like a tornado, an anomalous wave.

The torture, however, continues, there's no mercy in the metal box, and thus, injured in both mind and body, we find ourselves facing "Careering", overflowing with funk influences, a dub rhythm invades everything, takes away breath, drowns the soul, and suffocates the spirit. The air is almost gone, the first signs of fainting infiltrate like splinters under the skin. This time Lydon is not there, everything is left to the instrumentation, it is up to the mad musicians to define this mosaic of destruction and terror, and they do so excellently by 'seasoning' the piece with an acidic and corrosive guitar riff.

Once the piece is over, "No Birds" is already in the air, and things seem to be getting better; the guitar is less filtered than usual, and the bass seems calmer, but just wait a few seconds, and Lydon bursts in, imposing and theatrical, with his graceless voice. Not even a minute goes by, and the bass strings are once again struck with murderous fury.

A spiral, a spiral appears in the cold metal prison, tormenting, tightening, projecting disturbing images into the mind, rendering one helpless and defenseless.

"Graveyard" is a sea of nails sprouting on the walls of the metal box, nails that progressively approach the most recondite nerves of the brain, scratching the limbs with the nursery rhyme cadence of Lydon's chant, accompanied by disordered piano notes, bouncing here and there, rebounding off the icy walls stained with blood and tears. Meanwhile, the guitar produces a series of mad feedbacks that increase the sense of destabilization and insecurity, making it even more difficult to find a shred of courage to move forward.

"The Suit" is dominated by dub-funk, Levene's six-string is the absolute protagonist. The chords follow one another, and you find yourself at the limits of your strength, without the slightest conviction or hope, letting yourself be carried away by the dark spiral of the paranoid poet Lydon, while the bass continues to destroy but at the same time create sonic structures around the cold beats of the drums, disordered but regular.

"Bad Baby" arrives silently, not comprehending.. what is this? maybe a dream? the bass is still there, but no longer pulses in a killer way, a blanket of strings and double basses has taken the place of the noise theater that until now had destroyed the limbs and skinned the flesh.

It's a nice feeling, it seems possible to glimpse, looking ahead, some slit of white light, hues never savored here in the metal box before, you begin to run towards that light, gathering all remaining strength, falling but continuing to get up again, destroyed in body and mind, struggling towards the only apparent reference point. The strings accompany the now lobotomized brain towards hope.

Running, ever faster, but you realize something is wrong, at some point everything starts to become even darker, more obscure, and you slam once again against the impenetrable walls of the metal box.. and you fall, and you sink.. and "Socialist" begins: a cold mercetta again dominated by the bass, which further stuns, deteriorating any previous attempt of positive thought, a primitive dance implanted in the age of machines, of the automation of man and the nullification of individual thought.

Destroyed by rancor but unable to conceive any coherent thought, you stumble, you proceed after being wounded by the searing disappointment of unachieved redemption, arriving in an immense room, cold lights standing against futuristic and unhealthy skies, neon and sirens cloud the view, hypnotic sounds anesthetize eardrums, it's the heart of the metal box, where everything begins, where everything ends.

"Radio 4" envelops, deteriorates but at the same time almost gently cradles in its neurotic and post-futurist atmosphere, Lydon intoning a decadent apocalyptic lullaby while strength definitively leaves the mangled and dying body, the brain still sends the last weak signals, the legs atrophy contorting, elbows move banging on the floor, eyes turn white, the face hollows out like a wax mask.

The metal box has won, consumed another victim, the automated system feeds on souls and bodies, destroys thought, clouds vision. We are all part of a single great machine, each of us is a squeaky cog, a cold screw, a rough bolt, with the sole purpose of allowing the metal box to live, exist, and continue to feed on our souls.