Wow.
This is one album that just gets better with each listen. Also, probably my favorite "bass guitaR" album ever. Turn this dark nasty evil album way up -- especially the bass on your stereo, though it might possibly blow your speakers. Idiosynchratic as hell, though you can hear its influence all over the musical world. The guitar lines have that gang of four (solid gold-era) thing going on, where the guitar is a bit non-obtrusive with the overall structure, sort of playing around and "soloing" through the whole song, dropping tons ands tons of little "riffs", while hardly ever repeating at the same time. The drumming is just fantastic. And Johnny Rotten moans some shit.
Seriously, if you don't have this, it's just one of the most brilliant collection of songs you'll ever hear. 61 minutes of dark as hell murky wobbly bass implosions may sound like a bit much, but it's the rare "rock" record that never gets boring, even after an hour. There's a lot of depth in the textures, though at first it may seem a bit simple and repetetive.
This is an album of contradictions; the band sounds like it could fall apart at any minute, yet they also sound tight as hell. They sound like they have an infinite supply of energy, though the songs are usually slow and hazey. This album is beautiful yet ugly as hell. Noisey but melodic. Awesome but kinda shitty.
Did I mention a bunch of different people play drums on this album and each one has their own unique style? That really adds something special to the album, too, something you don't hear on many other records (imagine a Sonic Youth album consisting of all their past drummers, drumming on different songs they had written for the album, all bringing their own style to the table; would sound pretty crazy, eh?).
This is an album that has inspired countless post-punk, dance-punk, and art-punk bands. It really must be heard to be believed. A true classic, one of the finest albums I've talked about throughout the 89 albums I've talked about on this board.
If you haven't heard it, do yourself a favor today and blow your own mind. Go to google, type in pil metal box mediafire, click on the first link, download, un-rar, and enjoy.