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The Times, POP 3, July 4th 1997

Refreshed by the Sex Pistols reunion, John Lydon takes the Psycho's Path on a new solo album

A MAN of many parts, none of which quite fits, John Lydon follows up the unabashed nostalgia of the Sex Pistols reunion with the novel approach of his first solo album, Psycho's Path...

Left entirely to his own devices, Lydon produces a batch of songs that are more thoughtful and personal in tone than was typical of his work with either the Pistols or Public Image Ltd. "I'm never happy with what surrounds me," he sings on Sun, an appealing, lolloping riff which Lydon performs on an assortment of toilet-paper rolls, cardboard boxes and an accordion which, by his own admission, he can hardly play.

Despite the rather eccentric arrangements, Lydon actually makes his most concerted effort yet to sing, as opposed to the shouting and ranting that has been his stock-in-trade over the years. Sounding like David Thomas of Pere Ubu on the funky Another Way and the languorous A No and A Yes, he allows a rare sense of personal weakness to creep into the lyrics - "You see these problems and faults in you/I know they're there, I got them too" - although he would doubtless pass off such sentiments as simple role playing.

With dance remixes of various tracks by the Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Moby and Danny Saber also included, Psycho's Path not only sounds remarkably current but also has something original to say.

MOJO, July 22nd 1997

Unsettle Down Now
by James McNair

PUBLIC IMAGE Limited was a strange company with a high staff turnover. Employees such as John McGeoch and Lu Edmonds came and went, while unlikely temps like Steve Vai and Ryuichi Sakamoto filled-in. Overall, it was John Lydon's dalek-like yelp that ruled the roost, and his dark, lyrical tomfoolery that held your interest. Now, with his autobiography and the Pistols' Filthy Lucre tour behind him, Lydon's going it alone with Psycho's Path - and, as he explores such diverse themes as the Bosnian tragedy (Grave Ride), love triangles (Dis Ho) and indecision (A No And A Yes), it's his irritating yet engaging vocal mantras which, once again, have most artistic merit.

Instrumentally, the album makes sparing use of near-techno rhythms, oriental woodwind sounds and programmed bass, working best on the repetitive Another Way. Sun, another highlight, comes across initially like a sinister blend of Paul Simon's The Boy In The Bubble and Rolf Harris's version of Sun Arise. One could be cynical about The Chemical Brothers' re-working of Open Up and the other dance illuminati remixes included here - but if lydon's aim is still to simultaneously unsettle and intrigue his listener, he's succeeded again.

This is the first solo album of your 22-year career - why?

"It's not a career. Join the military - now that's a career. And I didn't dispense with the band either. What happened was I decided to build a studio, and while it was being built I started working with bits and pieces of equipment as it came in. By the time the studio was finished, there was an album in the offing. I always wanted my own studio because of the expense of working elsewhere. This album cost me practically nothing to make and, quite frankly, the Sex Pistols' tour paid for my studio - that was the justification for doing it."

The co-producer and musicians?

"I got in a guy called Mark Saunders because I quite liked his work with Neneh Cherry, and my brother Martin engineered for us. Mark was a concession to Virgin really, but it made sense. You do need somebody that will turn around and say, 'Ooh John, no!' I can't tell if I'm in or out of tune when I hear my voice on a tape - I just love me. Mark and Martin played little bits on the album to add texture, but on the whole it's me playing accordions, trumpets, violins or whatever via a keyboard."

You've called yourself a really poor musician who knows how to manipulate sounds. No desire to be a virtuoso?

"That would be very limiting. I've had terrible trouble working with 'real musicians' over the years; they've got no sense of creativity left. You play something to them and it's (drearily), 'Oh, it's not quite 4/4, is it?' Right now I'm trying to rehearse a band to take this album out on the road, and it's the musicians who are the problem. They want to break the album down and realign it to some piece of nonsense."

NME, July 1997 (Sun)

Psycho's Path (Virgin)

THE FUTURE: Sunnyside Nursing Home For The Terminally Self-Important (No irish, no blacks). A wizened old shifts in his incontinence chair, farts loudly and begins and to sing, "I wanna beeeee..." He stops in confusion. "Now what was that word," he mutters, struggling to remember his glorious past. "I wanna beee... b... b..." "Come on now, Mr Lydon!" chirps Hattie Jacques, sponging the drool from the old codger's Pretty Vacant' T-shirt "We don't want any more of your disillusions of grandeur, do we?" "B... Boring!" shrieks the shriveled anarchist finally" Yes, that's it: BOOORING!"

The Present: John Lydon makes his debut solo and the nation hangs out Jubilee bunting. Encouraged the success of his leftfield collaboration, the blank-firing Sex Pistols exhumation and the effort of constantly rewriting history, Lydon wheels his ego to that rock'n'roll fountain of youth - a solo career! Just like Sid! And at 41, is Lydon still playing the spoilt schoolboy? Well obviously.

At best 'Psycho's Path' makes some flaccid attempts to drag Lydon's saggy arse into the '90s on the watered-down Prodge-rock of 'Grave Ride' or the tinkling trip-hop beats of 'Take Me'. But as soon as he opens his mouth, 'Psycho's Path' pings straight back to 1980 when PiL's underachievement was hailed by tearful ex-punks as futuristic', rather than the more obvious 'bollocks'. By some cruel twist of fate Lydon's voice has become even more annoying than Malcolm Mclaren's.

But it's worse than that. The accordion-led folk rock of 'Sun' and 'Stump"s horrific Fall pastiche immediately conjure up images of bondage-clad yes-men squealing, "Oh yes, John! It's so postmodern! So now! So utterly unlistenable!" You can even see his wrinkly old face going, "tee hee!" behind his liver-spotted hands, because Lydon really doesn't have to make good music, he still has his punk rock Get Out Of Jail Free card. "Well that's the whole point, you fools!" he'll whine. "I'm showing YOU up to be the ridiculous ones!

But that joke isn't funny any more, and even Lydon knows it, ending as he does with five 'Open Up'-style remixes by the valiant but slightly misguided Chemical Brothers, leftfield, Moby, and Danny Saber, with each screaming, "Here's what it COULD have sounded like."

If dried-up old duffers tried of doing this in any other walk of life ('Stanley Matthews Announces Return To the Premiership'!) they'd be proclaimed lame and humanely destroyed. But then the word 'dignity' was never in lydon's vocabulary. John Lydon would love to be seen as an eccentric. In actual fact, he's just an old man playing children's games. The past? Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there.

(2) John Perry

Melody Maker, July 1997

Psycho's Path (Virgin)

It's a shame really - what he should be doing by rights is sipping tea and polishing his medals. As a Sex Pistol - Kenneth Williams - fronting the Baader-Heinhof Group - he blundered into becoming the most potent rock figurehead since Elvis, a maniac parachuted into the mainstream, a perfect irritant and an accidental genius. Before the spell snapped, Public Image Limited were responsible for some of the most thrilling and primal avant-garde rock music ever made, through zero theory and the simple pooling of erratic and disagreeable talents.

His autobiography is one of the most cheeringly brutal books I have ever read. It would have made sense to leave it there. Unfortunately (for us at least), part of being John Lydon involves not sipping tea and polishing your medals. Like Morrissey or someone, he's trapped - or as trapped as millionaires get. There's no conceivable way he could ever surprise anybody ever again. Neither has his decade of (rightly) unapologetic wallowing in luxury and sloth left his mind as fog-free as he might like to think.

The press release boasts notes on the songs written by Lydon himself, full of simplistic, pseudo-inflammatory babble. ("The bible is as corrupt as any book out there. What's wrong with Adam and Eve having a bit of sex? It's a good thing they did, because there wouldn't be any of us without them. ") So obvious and half-considered it feels like having a 16-year-old try to impress up on you that, man, alcohol and tobacco are drugs too, actually.

"Psycho's Path" is bad, worse than the last PiL album, no surprises. That weary, withering sneer drilling through horrible crunching electronic noise, a few unexciting remixes (Moby, Chemical Bros, the perennially overrated Leftfield) and nothing at all
that might ever inspire or seem touching. It's a shame, but could anyone even claim to be disappointed?

TAYLOR PARKES

Q Magazine July 1997

***

Psycho's Path
VIRGIN

"This album is like an angry horse being held on a leash," Lydon says about the first fully solo offering of his 22-yearcareer. While there is plenty of anger directed in short, simple phrases against the perceived enemies - religion, politicians and "street corner loudmouths", the musical surround is a loose conglomeration of toilet roll honkers, cardboard box drums, and occasional warm, loopy world beats and grooves. The Leftfield, Chemical Brothers and Moby mixes of tracks such as Grave Ride, Psychopath and Open Up, provide much-needed rigour in terms of production, their gritty dance mixes the perfect foil for his juddering, incantatory voice. As with PiL, Lydon still needs the alchemy of seasoned collaborators.

Lucy O'Brien

NETWORK, Toronto, July 22nd 1997

"Hmm. John Lydon talking about human rights? What does one make of such a thing? This solo album from the former Sex Pistol and the PiL leader is interesting - with some nice dark synth ballads, and upbeat dance tunes - but is far from a satisfying listen. Some of the techno flourishes just don't work and sometimes his voice is more grating than usual, but at least it's better than the last couple of PiL albums."

S.B.

NOW Magazine, Toronto, July 25th 1997
****

John Lydon may be the rock world's most insufferable geezer, but stupid he ain't. For his first-ever solo disc, the former PiL and Sex Pistols frontman scares up the best in the electronic music sphere - Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Moby - to detonate throbbing, vibrant, sometimes discomforting backdrops that Lydon then splatters with smug, hyper-enunciated rants. With that kind of man-power at the decks, Lydon can't help but eke success out of Psycho's Path even if, at times, the urge to tune him out of the mix is overwhelming. There's just so much sniveling one can endure, especially since much of Lydon's material takes truly adventurous turns that are invariably shot down to earth by his rusted-out yelps. Still, when it all clicks, the groove sweeps up everything in its path. A remix by Leftfield of the song Sun, for instance - with its faux-accordion squawks and bloopy Euro-sound - is a delight, and for once Lydon lets the breakbeats take centre stage. Lydon again follows the path less traveled.

Entertainment Weekly, July 25th 1997

"Lydon's wonderfully titled solo debut finds the ex-Sex Pistol venturing into electronica with mixed results. Path has its moments (as do most of the albums Lydon made with Public Image Ltd. after the Pistols' demise), but the overall effect is surprisingly bland, like watered-down Trent Reznor. Maybe Lydon should call his next band Two Inch Nails. C+

TS

Top Magazine, July 1997

Psycho's Path (Virgin)

FORMER Sex Pistols vocalist John Lydon cuts a more peripheral figure these days, although his voice has lost little of its precision, as this first solo album in a 22-year career vividly proves.

Lydon is a poor musician, but he still insists on playing just about everything on Psycho's Path. Such an unorthodox technique lends the LP an artless, unaffected style, but also leaves several tracks in need of extra musical muscle. The inclusion of five extra mixes by the likes of Leftfield and Moby only highlight the patchiness Of his own approach. On the rumbling Grave Ride, the accordion-led single Sun and the playful, cajoling Dog, however, he still burns with the verve of old.

***

Melody Maker, July 1997

SUN
Virgin

BOOK now! Danni Minogue is Cinderella! Philip Schofield is Buttons! John Lydon is Widow Twanky! Can't be long now before Lydon forgets this charade of being a pop star and takes up his true calling at The Palladium. With annunciation that would send Windsor Davies running back to elocution classes with shame, Lydon tuts and fusses over this Leftfield remix. Unlike the fine "Open Up", it's all creaking accordion and sullen beats sounding for all the world like The Levellers deciding to turn their grimy hands to techno. It's meant to sound vicious and edgy, but all I can imagine is him in a false beard and long coat singing "You've Gotta Pick A Pocket Or Two" to a chocolate-covered matinee audience. Still, at least he makes an effort. And this is almost likeably preposterous… Altogether now - he's behind you! What is he doing there?

NME, July 1997

Sun
(Virgin)

SOMETIMES YOU have to wonder at the wisdom of The Good. Lord. For he is surely encouraging John Lydon. I mean, unless there was some sort of divine intervention involved, natural justice would have made Lydon bald years ago. But no, here he is again with a full head of over-styled hair, offering yet another hunk of uncooked shit, this time some sort of Levellers reject, Morris Dancing, ley line, Men Without Hats thing. Of course, you could look at it the other way; Lydon's music might not be a punishment for OUR sins, it could be punishment for HIS. In fact, if this stack of poo really is the best Lydon can do, his life must be a living hell of impotent frustration. Ahh, yes. I feel better already.

Dallas Observer, Aug 7-13, 1997

"Rotten No More"

Exactly a year ago, John Lydon donned his punk costume and Rotten persona and toured with the rest of the beer-bellied Sex Pistols for big bucks -- cash from chaos, indeed. He admitted it, and people still bought; audiences flocked to witness what punk rock was all about. Lydon gave them the cartoon version, with a sneer that translated something like this: "If you think the Pistols can come back 20 years later and mean anything, then there's one of you born every minute."

Yet the man could be king. In true Jacko fashion, he could appoint himself "king of punk" and make a fortune in the nostalgia circus. Hell, he could even have a multimillion-selling catch o' the day like Offspring opening
for him. He chose not to. Maybe it's that old-fashioned affliction called integrity. The truth is that Lydon is the kind of musician who likes to experiment, break down boundaries. The man grew up with reggae and Can; how long could he stay happy with one-chord songs while punk rock was turning into an industry all around him? As early as 1978, he was already challenging people's misconceptions with PiL. Since then, his stance -- the absolute opinions, the seemingly cynical outlook, his hyperbolic sarcasm -- has often been more interesting than some of his recent recorded output.

Psycho's Path is his first solo album, and it is not much different from his earlier work with PiL. Brewed in his home studio in Los Angeles, it is all Lydon: Parts of it share the spooky ambience of Metal Box, the awkward rhythmic thrust of Flowers of Romance, and the haphazard melodies of Album. All the songs are bathed with a thin glow of electronica, with Lydon more concerned with getting under your skin than on your nerves. He even expresses the desire to be loved in "Take Me." On his own terms, of course. Elsewhere, the idiosyncratic pulse of "Dog," the polyrhythmic "Another Way," and the stark humanity of "Grave Ride" -- inspired by the madness in Bosnia -- make this a compelling album by a man who supposedly doesn't give a damn.

Rarely -- if ever -- has a man been so disgusted with his own myth. A myth that he has bloody-mindedly been trying to destroy for 20 years now, without much effect. Maybe the sheer musicality of Psycho's Path will take a chunk out of it; a giant step away from his legend. Bet your now-too-small Pistols T-shirt, however, that his new, low-key tour will end up a disaster: Half of the audience will be hoping for crumbs of a Pistols song, and Lydon will do his best to irritate and agitate them.

Philip Chrissopoulos

Variety, August 19th 1997

John Lydon - (The Palace; 575 capacity; $15.50)

Presented by Goldenvoice. Band: Lydon, Martin Lydon, Deror Margalith, Otis
Hayes. Reviewed Aug. 13, 1997.

Ahh, Johnny, we hardly know ye. Just about the only recurring element in Lydon's quantum shifts - from archduke of anarchy in the Sex Pistols to rubbery, synth-sheathed cynic in Public Image Ltd. to his more vague, less thorny solo persona - is anger. Anger roils out of Lydon still, and, just as in the age of the Pistols, it is a galvanizing, provocative force. He may have lowered (raised?) his cross hairs from the British royalty to free speech issues these days, and a close reading of the lyrics off his new (and first solo) album, "Psycho's Path," might seem more philosophy than rant, but make no mistake: Lydon remains the world's most pissed-off 41-year-old ex-punk media darling.

Musically, Lydon, fronting a turn-of-the-millennium-style power trio (two keyboardists and a drummer), is hewing fairly close to the PiL standard of part industrial dance groove, part thrash metal and part moody world music. But within the context of working solo, Lydon's emerging from behind the Johnny Rotten mask of sarcasm; the portrait drawn by the title track to the new release might almost be vulnerably autobiographical.

Lydon's making no moves toward radio friendliness a la "Rise" or "Public Image" (both of which were given blistering run-through's Wednesday), but the churning, throbbing techno-crunch of "Psycho's Path" already is scoring points on the club scene, where Lydon is well-known and respected. This tour, like most other Lydon affairs, has been plagued by cancellations, personnel replacements and sheer bad luck, and there were
spots of roughness Wednesday night as well (plus quite a few choice Rottenesque expletives as a result). But any show, even a 70-minute one, that ends with the frontman blaming the brevity of the set on his label's utter lack of financial support gets my vote as an honest one... loud, spleen-filled, challenging and honest.

John Voland

People Magazine, August 25th 1997

The Story Of Johnny Rotten

His pioneering British punk band, the Sex Pistols, dissolved in 1978 after
only one album, but uppity iconoclast John Lydon -Mr. Rotten to you- never
went away. Following the quick fade of the Pistols (whose survivors staged
a "reunion" tour last year) he formed Public Image Ltd., one of the most
acclaimed post-punk groups of the 80's. In July, Lydon, who lives in L.A.,
released Psycho's Path (Virgin), his first solo album in a 22-year career.

Q: Are you proud that you're such an influential figure in pop history?

A: No. It makes me uncomfortable. It quite frankly sickens me to see bands
out there imitating stuff I've done yonks back.

Q: Do critics understand you?

A: I read in one of the reviews that described "Dis Ho" (on Psycho's Path)
as a Duran Duran-style song. I thought it was hilarious. If somebody wanted
to twist it in me, they couldn't have picked a better insult.

Q: Is making records still fun?

A: Oh yeah, more fun than ever. With the Pistols we were thrown into the
deep end far too quickly, and we didn't have much time to work out what we
were doing. Behind all that apparent arrogance was insecurity.

Kansas City New Times, August 21st

At one time, Public Image Limited consistently managed to find another way. Lydon and crew adamantly refused to repeat themselves, each studio album different from the last; the bizarro-disco of Metal Box, the drum-in-your-face dirges of The Flowers of Romance, the guitar assault of Album (a sell-out that worked).... Surrounding himself with inventive collaborators, Lydon forged music that would greatly influence "alternative" and its various bastard genres for many years to come. Unfortunately, by its last few albums, PiL appeared to be coasting, Lydon seemingly content to chug out more of the same - always more-than-competently played, but little more than self-imitation.

Which makes Psycho's Path, his first solo album - and a DIY project, no less (Martin Lydon and Mark Saunders receive credit for "additional keyboards and guitars") - John Lydon's big chance to take his anti-pop in a new direction, perhaps to even leave PiL far behind. But a quote from his Rotten autobiography ("... the crown and the glory of the Sex Pistols is that we've always managed to disappoint on big occasions. When the chips were down, we never came through.") comes back to haunt, because true to his Rotten ways, Lydon once again fails to come through. Little new occurs here, rather the same stuff as latter-day PiL - but without the individualistic musicians who helped make those recordings list enable. Instead Lydon constructs his own electronic backdrop, predominantly keyboards and effects, that on most tracks lacks the depth to withstand repeated listening's.

Fortunately, Psycho's Path also evidences another reliably-Lydon trait: scattering diamonds amid the muck. "Dog," is a thoroughly engrossing piece with hypnotic rhythm track (accented by electroid dog bark), swirling middle-Eastern keys, and one pedantic/poofish Lydon voice delivering a moral lecture, while a proto-punk Lydon provides response ("Dog... dog..."). Interesting things also happen on "Psychopath" in which Lydon employs his fear-and-trembling persona to describe the call of demons rising from within. A catchy organ and guitar riff energizes "Take Me," as does a delightfully drunken accordion-and-percussion "Sun," in which the artist perhaps laments his life in L.A. while daydreaming of dreary old London ("I miss the city/I miss the rain and sleet ... I'm never happy with what surrounds me").

The whine that we have come to know and love delivers some of Lydon's most intriguing lyrics yet, and admittedly the whine has never sounded better - too bad it lacks a musical accompaniment with substance enough to support it.

James Marinovich

Rolling Stone, September 4th 1997 (RS 768)
***

Finally, John Lydon's back on dangerous ground. The erstwhile Sex Pistols/Public Image Limited provocateur's first-ever solo album features his most dissonant noises since PiL's 1981 Flowers of Romance. Songs like "Grave Ride" skitter over tribal electronics spiked with Eastern drones; the John Wayne Gacy-influenced "Psychopath," however, proves that Lydon's trademark misanthropy is still intact. Psycho's Path also finds Lydon, like everybody else, going techno for the '90s. For him it makes sense, though, as he's always been a dance-music buff (an early PiL song wasn't called "Death Disco" for nothing). It's a gas to hear him out-Prodigy the Prodigy, snarling over grooves from electronica heavyweights such as Leftfield, the Chemical Brothers and Moby.

MATT DIEHL

All Music Guide

For his first solo album, John Lydon decided to tentatively explore electronica without leaving behind the guitar growl that made the Sex Pistols' 1996 reunion a success. The guitars are woven into the electronic dance beats throughout Psycho's Path, which occasionally results in some exciting juxtapositions. However, it too often sounds like Lydon doesn't know how to follow through on his ideas; at worst, he sounds as if he's
grasping for the ideas himself. Even with its faults, Psycho's Path sounds more alive and ambitious than the last handful of Public Image Limited albums, and certainly more vital than the Sex Pistols reunion, so it is a respectable comeback of sorts.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine