Music Review: Public Image Ltd - What the World Needs Now...

John Lydon (perhaps better known by his punk stage persona Johnny Rotten) founded arguably the first post punk outfit in 1978, Public Image Ltd, after punk rock essentially met its ill-fated and rapid end with the death of fellow Sex Pistols bandmate Sid Vicious (okay, there's much more to the story than just that, but as far as the genesis of Public Image Ltd is concerned, that was the defining moment). Public Image Ltd (PIL) return in 2015 with their tenth album, What the World Needs Now... and it's a doozy.

Album cover for What the World Needs Now...

Part of what made the post punk genre a lasting and highly influential one was born out of the blank void punk left behind in the late 70s. Punk challenged the boundaries of what "music" meant and served as a means of expression for working class youth faced with rough world economies and questionable, at best, futures. Without getting into an extended discussion of punk's beginnings, rapid dissolution, and the rise of post punk, understand that the music industry shifted perspective in the 70s and that post punk was born in a period where extreme creativity was highly encouraged. Punk showed the world that you didn't need to have any particular training to be a musician - anyone with the desire to express themselves and play music could, and should, do it.

PIL from its very inception was one of the bands at the forefront of this limitless musical landscape. Where the Sex Pistols followed in traditional punk rock bravado (power chords and anarchist-leaning lyrics, typically speaking), Lydon took PIL to a very different space, welcoming a slower tempo and more innovative music led by a heavy bass sound and coupled with Lydon's distinctive, bitter snarl.

John Lydon at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas, back in November 2012. Despite the interview and stage antics, he was very nice to talk to, though short of words at the time.

With this brief overview in mind, delving into What the World Needs Now... is like taking that rich past and setting it on fire. This is an album that has vastly deviated from so much of what originally defined PIL that it's hardly recognizable as a PIL album. Even Lydon's typical jabbing half singing, half yelling affair is greatly lacking in this latest showing.

What the World Needs Now... opens with lead single "Double Trouble." This number is characterized by a rather drab mixture of guitars and drums, nothing standout musically. Lyrically, Lydon seems to have strung together a series of random words with the only requirement being that the lines rhyme. The subject matter, apparently based around an argument Lydon had with his wife about a plumbing issue, leaves little to the imagination and is perhaps the negative side of an artist crafting lyrics around personal anecdotes.

Songs like "Bettie Page" and "C'est la Vie" had the subtle sparks of being great songs, at least where the music is concerned, but were met with lackluster lyrics and a run-on of garbled vocals that hardly hearkens back to the style Lydon is most known for. If one didn't know better, they'd ask if Lydon even was the singer for most of these songs.

"Spice of Choice" interrupts the opening rubbish of the album and proves to be a surprisingly solid track, capitalizing on an interesting guitar lead and a strong vocal showing from Lydon who finally proves that he still has the same talents which first catapulted PIL to instant success in the 80s. This high point is immediately dulled with follow-up song "The One" which more closely resembles a lost b side for Three Dog Night than a PIL song with its bass driven shuffle step feel and semi whispered singing vocals from Lydon. The song itself isn't bad, but feels out of place when compared to the typical backdrop of a PIL song.

Eight minute opus "Big Blue Sky" starts with a dominant bass line, only to be caught in a far overdone circle of repetitious loops and tired choruses. This was a song nearly doomed from the start, never finding a true calling and purpose, and the eight minute length only adds further insult to injury.

The last of the album surprisingly comes to life and finds direction. "Whole Life Time" brings the tide back around, with a funk-esque inspired bass line leading the way, a musical high point to the album. The style continues on into "I'm Not Satisfied" which almost has a parallel feel to one of PIL's most popular songs, "(This is Not a) Love Song" with a similar repetitious lyric that the rest of the song is built around. The album is rounded out with Lydon answering minimally what it is the world needs now: "Another fuck off." More aptly, what the world needs now is for Lydon to find direction for this reincarnated form of PIL.

Perhaps much of this latest offering from PIL was intended as a joke, but it's one that never reached the punchline. In a time where older bands are reuniting and putting forth new albums to stand beside their old glories, PIL goes the way most of these bands are going - dismal, at best, results with songs that never fully form a direction. Lydon's vocals try to save several of the musically lackluster songs, but even his voice has its limits. Perhaps a stronger showing than their previous album (2012's This is PIL, the group's first new album in twenty years), but certainly a far cry from what PIL once was. Lydon will need to take a much closer look moving forward. If this was meant as a joke album, it's time to grow up and either create meaningful work once again or stop taking the fans for fools who will buy anything. Not an impressive showing in the least. Sorry, Johnny.

PIL begins an extended tour to support What the World Needs Now... on September 18, 2015 in Glasgow. The group reaches the US in November, but no tour dates in Texas have been announced as of yet.

Music Review: Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

Chelsea Wolfe returns with her newest experimental art-meets-rock album, Abyss, building on the successes of prior albums like Pain is Beauty (2013). Those seeking the short form need look no further - Abyss is another strong showing from Wolfe and you would be reminisce to merely dismiss it as art rock noise.

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss (2015)

Nailing down Wolfe's work depends largely on which album you choose to listen to - from experimental post-industrial sludge to deeply brooding neofolk with nearly everything imaginable between, Wolfe has consistently gone for complete artistic freedom and an unwillingness to do the exact same thing every time.

Abyss is easily the darkest of her albums yet, and the first to truly bring to the forefront the flecks of metal genre influence that have been sprinkled sparingly in past albums. Where it was a subtle hint adding to the rich musical landscape in the past, those tones now growl to life as a barrage of doom and gloom guitar distortion that can only be described (by me, anyways) as industrial sludge (said with full affection and praise).

Chelsea Wolfe has always walked the fine line of goth aesthetic without plunging fully into it musically. That all changes with Abyss. Photo by Johanna Torell.

Another refreshing twist in the landscape of Abyss is an immediacy with each song. Wolfe's vocals are, as always, spot on and powerful, even as they serve in stark contrast to the music (clear perfection against a backdrop of sinister distortion). These are songs meant to be immersive from the start, not taking their time to build and grow into something. Where Wolfe's prior work certainly carries that indie "take it or leave it" feel, Abyss comes off being the first album to truly draw in the less musical savants among us.

Abyss, based around the concept of sleep paralysis, opens with "Carrion Flowers" and immediately throws the listener into that panic state of being unable to wake up, fighting to escape, before lightening up towards the end, resembling a moment of briefly waking and escaping the dream. As "Iron Moon" begins and immediately returns to that harsh panicked state, we lapse back to sleep and find ourselves surrounded by the nightmare once again. Other tracks of particular notice include "Dragged Out" with a particular haunting, ghost-like quality at the end, "Grey Days" for its more reserved feel and driving cello as Wolfe sings about the River Styx, and "Color of Blood" for its initially gloomy and persistent moody atmosphere molded around Wolfe's notion that we should all "Grow old, let [our] hair grow."

Throughout the album, Wolfe serves as the guiding light through the periods of unease, wakeful fits of hope, and vast depths of darkness. In the deluge of post-80s "gothic rock," so much of what is called goth has become mired in terrible cliches and drab (no pun intended) melodramas, perpetuating ages old stereotypes that none of the original art-meets-glam-rock bands would have endorsed. Wolfe brings the artistic expression back by creating a musical embodiment of sleep paralysis through a combination of visual lyrics, rapid shifts in music from panicked and schizophrenic to calm and comforting in the blink of an eye, and a voice to guide the dreamer through the nightmare they've embarked. Though not strictly a concept album, Abyss does a near flawless job of transforming the listener from start to end. While it won't be everyone's cup of tea, this may easily be Wolfe's strongest showing to date. And if her attitude is any indicator, this is just the beginning of what will surely be a long and lasting ride.

Wolfe returns to Dallas (fun fact, Abyss was actually recorded here in Dallas) at the Kessler Theater this Sunday (September 20,2015) with Wovenhand as openers. Tickets are on sale now (purchase tickets from the Kessler Theater). By all accounts, this won't be a show to miss.

Music Review: Siouxsie Sioux - "Love Crime"

It's been a long time (general business with a long term web project I've undertaken and going back to school), but some of you have asked, and so here I am with a new addition to the music reviews! It's been a major buzz topic these last couple weeks, but today we'll look at Siouxsie Sioux's latest musical offering, "Love Crime."

Siouxsie Sioux

For those who follow the post punk genre as I do, the name Siouxsie Sioux is unmistakable. She is to the post punk world what Elvis Presley was to rock in the 50s. Always one for a distinctive style, be it in physical appearance, musical style, or witty comebacks during interviews, Sioux has always embodied a particular penchant for reinvention in each music project she's endeavored. From the seminal work as Siouxsie and the Banshees, arguably one of the defining bands of the 80s British post punk offerings, to the percussive-heavy project The Creatures, to an eclectic yet familiar powerful first solo album, Sioux is perhaps one of the very few artists who does great things regardless of the project, having yet to make a large musical mishap.

As it were, following a strong debut solo album (2007's Mantaray), Sioux would essentially drift off into the shadows, making small appearances here and there as a reminder that she's not gone, just hiding. Brooding. Much with David Bowie's mysterious ten year hiatus, Sioux would seemingly vanish for approximately eight years. After all that time, the "Ice Queen" returns with a new song, "Love Crime."

Brian Reitzell

Sioux, a fan of the television series Hannibal, was tapped by Brian Reitzell (former drummer of Redd Kross and current musical supervisor and composer for the Hannibal series) with the suggestion of a collaboration. Sioux immediately agreed and inquired what the final season would more or less be about - a love story, as it were. Sioux began writing lyrics without having seen any of the final season or receiving any major details on the overall plot line. What resulted was "Love Crime," the first song Sioux has written and sung in roughly eight years, and possibly the first of many in a line of collaborations with Reitzell.

The song itself is on the slower side, reminiscent in some cases of 1992 Banshees hit "Face To Face" (featured in Batman Returns). It is an eerie song, driven by drums, violin, and bass, before a moving guitar section kicks in behind Sioux's ever refined and spotless vocals. Though cliched as it may be, Sioux is a perfect example of how age can make the voice even stronger and richer than it was already. Listening to this song literally gave me goosebumps. It's a glimpse into what Sioux could have been doing all these years, but has kept pent up instead, evolving and growing into an incredibly strong first showing in eight years. Not that Sioux needs my approval or anyone else's, but "Love Crime" makes a strong argument for her full return to music. Let's just hope that future collaborations between her and Reitzell find their way to a music release...and sooner rather than later.