Album: Public Image Ltd, This Is PiL (PIL Official)

It's hard not to feel slightly disappointed by PiL's first new studio album in two decades.

A comeback shouldn't sound this much like treading water, surely? John Lydon's themes are predictable – dreary England; the outsider's rage against the mainstream; incompetent politicians; the creative value of chaos – while the music sounds too generically PiL, its goth-funk-disco shuffle only occasionally working up a head of steam. "One Drop" has a pulsing stridency, the relaxed Krautrock motorik of "Out of the Woods" profits from the unusual addition of banjo, and "Lollipop Opera" uses Lydon's staccato vocal to good rhythmic effect, but overall it's just a bit of a plod, I'm afraid.

Download: One Drop; Lollipop Opera; Out of the Woods