Public Image Limited – Metal Box, Second Edition (1979) [Japanese Limited SHM-SACD 2015] {SACD ISO + FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz}

PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box (issued in the U.S. as Second Edition) 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.

Tracklist:
01. Albatross
02. Memories
03. Swan Lake
04. Poptones
05. Careering
06. Socialist
07. Graveyard
08. The Suit
09. Bad Baby
10. No Birds
11. Chant
12. Radio 4

DSD flat transferred from U.K. original analogue master tapes.
Edited in DSD by Manabu Matsumura at Universal Music Studios, Tokyo, in 2015.

SACD ISO

mqs.link_1980MetalBx.SecndEditinJapan2015SHMSACDIS.part1.rar
mqs.link_1980MetalBx.SecndEditinJapan2015SHMSACDIS.part2.rar
mqs.link_1980MetalBx.SecndEditinJapan2015SHMSACDIS.part3.rar

FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz

mqs.link_1980MetalBx.SecndEditinJapan2015FLAC2488.2.part1.rar
mqs.link_1980MetalBx.SecndEditinJapan2015FLAC2488.2.part2.rar