Metal Box (Second Edition) cover

Metal Box (Second Edition)

Released

Here it is—the big fuck you, John Lydon really and truly leaving Johnny Rotten behind. That doesn’t mean you have to eat the vegetables your elders keep forcing on you. This may be legendary but a chunk of it is fairly lax. These are jams, one or two figures stretched out for five to ten minutes. Lydon is disgusted, Wobble is liquid tar, Keith Levene is diagonal and crispy, and a variety of drummers (including Levene) fill in the blanks. “Swan Lake” and “Poptones” are masterpieces of menace, no less spooked out today than they were forty years ago. “Radio 4” is also a complete gem of synth work from Leven, an imaginary theme for a station that did not yet exist.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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