PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It's a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future. Sure, there were touchstones that got their imaginations running -- the bizarreness of
Captain Beefheart, the open and rhythmic spaces of
Can, and the dense pulses of
Lee Perry's productions fueled their creative fires -- but what they achieved with their second record is a completely unique hour of avant-garde noise. Originally packaged in a film canister as a trio of 12" records played at 45 rpm, the bass and treble are pegged at 11 throughout, with nary a tinge of midrange to be found. It's all scrapes and throbs (dubscrapes?), supplanted by
John Lydon's caterwauling about such subjects as his dying mother, resentment, and murder. Guitarist
Keith Levene splatters silvery, violent, percussive shards of metallic scrapes onto the canvas, much like a one-armed Jackson Pollock.
Jah Wobble and
Richard Dudanski lay down a molasses-thick rhythmic foundation throughout that's just as funky as
Can's
Czukay/Leibezeit and
Chic's
Edwards/
Rodgers. It's alien dance music. Metal Box might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as
Never Mind the Bollocks, and you certainly can't trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn't have existed without it like the
Sex Pistols record. But like a virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through a much broader scope of artists and genres. [Metal Box was issued in the States in 1980 with different artwork and cheaper packaging under the title
Second Edition; the track sequence differs as well. The U.K. reissue of Metal Box on CD boasts better sound quality than the
Second Edition CD.] ~ Andy Kellman