Public Image Ltd Flowers Of Romance CD

Live Recording

Public Image Ltd.: John Lydon, Keith Levene, Martin Atkins.
This import of FLOWERS OF ROMANCE contains 3 bonus tracks.
Public Image Ltd.: John Lydon (vocals, guitar); Keith Levene (guitar); Martin Atkins (drums).
As opposed to the axis of throbbing bass and guitar slashings of Metal Box, The Flowers of Romance is centralized on razor-sharp drums and typically haranguing vocals. No dubwise grooves here -- bassist Jah Wobble was kicked out prior to the recording for ripping off PiL backing tracks for his solo material. And growing more disenchanted with the guitar, Keith Levene's infatuation with synthesizers was reaching a boiling point. His scythe-like guitar is truly brought out for only one song. Stark and minimal are taken to daring lengths, so it's no surprise that Virgin initially balked at issuing the heavily percussive record. "Four Enclosed Walls" opens with something of a mechanical death rattle and John Lydon's quavering warble, framed by backwards piano and Martin Atkins' spartan, dry-as-a-bone drumming. His rapier-like drums seem to serve a similar purpose to Levene's guitar on Metal Box. An unsteady drum pattern and fragile, wind chime-like guitar from Levene shape "Track 8," a bleak look at sexual relationships. Lydon adds color with pleasant imagery of Butterball turkeys and elephant graves. "Under the House" and "Francis Massacre" are the most violent tracks due to Atkins' machine gun firing and Levene's chilling atmosperics. Lydon lashes out at zealous fans on the only bottom-heavy tune, "Banging the Door": "The walls are so thin/The neighbors listen in/Keep the noise down." Perhaps the band's most challenging work (in the avant garde sense), it's just as "love it or hate it" as Metal Box; it'll either go down a treat or like a five-pound block of liverwurst. [The UK version adds three bonus tracks: an instrumental version of "The Flowers of Romance," "Another," (essentially "Graveyard" with vocals) and "Home Is Where the Heart Is." The latter two can be found on Plastic Box.] ~ Andy Kellman
The fourth Public Image Limited album is something of a milestone. Spread across its 33 minutes is some of the harshest and least "user-friendly" music ever recorded for a major record company. FLOWERS, the first album following the departure of the band's initial bass player, finds John Lydon largely abandoning guitars in the construction of his songs. The music is mainly comprised of jerking, off-kilter drumming, layered with creepy keyboard effects.
Echoing, buried backing vocals add menace to his uniformly disturbing lyrics. The tone of "Spread her body all naked and silly, a bulbous heap batting her eyelids" ("Track 8") and "What do you want, you're annoying go away, it's not my fault that you're lonely" ("Banging the Door") is not atypical. In "Under the House," a tale of a ghostly haunting in a dream-house, the almost lethargic vocals are undercut with frenzied drumming, distant growls, and creaking sounds. "Go Back," one of Lydon's classic anti-middle-class-complacency rants, features a tinny, squalling guitar--almost as an afterthought to the rigid drums. "Francis Massacre" ends the record abruptly with a mixture of seemingly unrelated drums, samples, and vocals. FLOWERS is a classic album of awkward and disturbing anti-"pop" music.