4.0 out of 5 stars
PiL remade if not always remodeled, May 16, 2006
This review is from: Tribute to Public Image Ltd (Audio CD)
Actually I stand corrected from a nearly identical review given the domestic release: I had heard of Atari Teenage Riot, and thought of them often when hearing this disc, but until checking the promo blurb on the album cover reproduced here--differing from my more generic one!--I did not know the link between Hanin Elias and ATR. It's actually one of the weaker tracks on a thankfully rather strong album.
Often when "Various Artists," none of whom you've heard of, cover a band that you have not only heard of but probably liked--if you're considering a tribute compilation, it's implicit--it's risky. I came across this in a second-hand assortment of CDs and took the risk. The first couple of songs made me think I'd been foolish. These reminded me of Nina Hagen or the new-wave one-hit band Berlin: early 80s synth-pop. But, then the pace picked up and until the cover of "Seattle," did not let up. Techno and post-punk industrial danceable but assaultive interpretations of the best songs off of PiL's first (and best) three albums flowed together well in a sequence perfect for imitating a club DJ's mixtape on your home or car system.
PiL lends itself best by musicians updating its sounds into this genre. Bands here reminded me of such other 80s tunes by The Fall, Killing Joke, Ministry, and the Touch & Go Chicago label's trademark combo of pummel and rhythm. What's not so successful are those covers here that try to too closely mimic John Lydon's inimitable (if much imitated) vocal styles. Many of the better deliveries here are by female singers, who can adopt his yowls and crescendos and swoops while avoiding too close a timbre of his male pitch. The lackluster covers of "Seattle" & "This Is What You Want," fittingly, are of PiL's later songs, when the conceit that it was a band had faded to John & his hired hands, and the music of latter PiL certainly suffers by comparison--the worst versions here are of the two weakest songs covered.
The album, for the last third, settles into a steady, if less confrontational, sequence; the last song, a textured and emotional cover of Banging the Door, shows how an intelligent approach inspired by but not slavish to the PiL original can keep the spirit of PiL at their experimental early best still fresh two-and-a-half decades later.
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