Review: The Prodigy — The Day is My Enemy
The Prodigy have had too much pressure put on them since the late 90s.
NB: This is a re-up of my review from early last year over at Art Gallery Funk Night (linked below).
The landscape of dance music, as a whole, has changed in a remarkable fashion over the years and The Prodigy have struggled to keep up with it, and in doing so their focus has been on crafting tracks better suit their live settings rather than blasting through headphones; Whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing is entirely up to you. The band has always been one of the pinnacle groups for live performance over its two decade career, but with such an ease of access to music technologies today, the aggressive, violent sounds that burned out of the massive synth walls on stages has come and gone.
The Day Is My Enemy marks six years since the band’s last album, Invaders Must Die (IMD). IMD was an easily accessible record from the group that featured an odd simplicity in production and a sort of try hard aggressiveness that fell very flat very quickly. Invaders Must Die was an album that was built for live performance and not your living room or your headphones, and so its try-hard aggression was left at the door and felt far too dated when put up against the current crop of music that was coming out at the time (see: 2009). It wasn’t so much as the group phoning it in, but more just them trying to settle into the new landscape — taking into account this was around the time dubstep and its boofhead aggressiveness was starting to scream onto the scene.
But, The Day is My Enemy is a truer return to form than Invaders was. Odd but also seemingly smart by the band to release the album’s weaker tracks early. Wall of Death, a track that makes little sense being the album closer, is, when boiled down simply, just pure aggro noise that lacks any direction and some of that try-hard rock with low-cut guitars and influences pouring out.
“Nasty”, the most accessible track on the record, oozes the silly lyrics “Nasty! Nasty! Triple X Rated!” but rocks a great little bit of energy marred only by its simple sounding rinser lead and structure; it’s not overly creative and does smell a little bit of IMD leftovers. The opening track, “The Day Is My Enemy”, broods darkly, with a rolling drum line to open up proceedings in an epic fashion. The track has a raw, industrial energy that will have you thinking of strobes screeching in your eyes and sweat lining the walls; it sets up the album in a terrific fashion and could work itself nicely on any point of the tracklist.
Liam Howlett’s has always had an incredible ability to create bone-rattling and source bone-rattling breaks. The band has always been terrific at grinding out tribal inspired rhythms and exploring the heart of the rave with its share of lasers, heavy guitars and thumping beats. Remember: they were the flag-bearers for the majority of the early 90s for rave and anti-establishment culture.
“Rebel Radio” has its kick drums stomp guitar squelches into the ground and then let up for a tribal break only to have them completely crushed again in such a satisfying fashion. “Get Your Fight On” feels a little lazy as it borrows a lot from “Take Me To The Hospital”, but does a far better job with its grubby lead and its boofy lyrics “Get Your Fight On!”.
Flux Pavillion features on the more house-y Experience-vibed “Rhythm Bomb” which I guarantee will grow on you. Its chimpmunk vocals cut in and out, and the pulsing sawtooth synth that swims around its drums work nicely together making a solid case for “modern rave sound”. “Ibiza” has Sleaford Mods on vocals and is arguably the worst track of the whole album with a weird two minute kind of drum heavy sketch that doesn’t feel like it belongs here.
Maxim and Keith also show up and add their dose of spitfire energy, but I am definitely curious about their production input on the album, given I’ve seen Howlett credited as the principal engineer. On a fundamental level, though, this never really feels like Howlett and co. trying to be tough 40 year olds past their prime; it feels like a legitimate attempt to spit a truer, veteran venom that holds the same sensibilities and themes the group has pushed since the beginning of their careers. Sure, it lacks the sheen of The Prodigy classics in spots, and there are maybe three or four total clunkers on here, but the best of this album really does shine through the stuff that doesn’t work, and, I think, for a band that has been on the scene for 25 years that speaks volumes of how good The Prodigy were and are.
Originally published at artgalleryfunknight.com on March 27, 2015.
