As much as I hate Sex Pistols, I actually enjoyed John Lydon’s second album with his post-punk band, Metal Box. Now that I’ve gotten to their first album, Public Image, and I also liked it, though it wasn’t as good. Metal Box saw the band perfectly compromising their experimentalism with good songwriting, and on their first album they sacrifice accessibility for some more complex song structures that don’t necessarily add anything, like the plodding, nine-minute opener that is otherwise a good track.

A real stand-out is the self-titled track “Public Image” which is a poppy new wave-ish song and a really damn good one at that. The closing track is a bizarre dance-inspired song which is also pretty damn cool. Enough neat moments and experimentalism with a purpose in mind make this worth listening to, but it’s too inconsistent and its highs mostly not high enough for me to really call it great. John Lydon’s rants on religion at the beginning of the album are pretty pedestrian, and this is coming from an Atheist. Good, though. The jagged guitar riffs and repetitive, pulsing rhythms make this a defining post-punk album of its time.