Search - Prodigy :: More Music for the Jilted Generation

Mindblowing Techno With Slamming Beats!

LimpRageAgainstTheBizkitMachine | Reigate, Surrey United Kingdom | 09/09/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've got all of Prodigy's albums - but this is their best. Many people have argued that this wasn't Prodigy - but they missed the fact that every album of theirs is different (Experience is hard dance, Fat Of The Land is more rock/hip-hop, and Dirtchamber Sessions Vol.1 is a DJ mix album!) This, however, is simply superb - every other track on here deserves to be a single and on the radio, the others deserve listing again and again until you're asleep...Break And Enter - despite the 8 minute running time, is by far and away the best track on the album - very hard beats, tough sounds, with a sweet sounding vocal sample gliding over the top - replete with breaking glass and alarms, and awesome kicks starts.Their Law is the most metal track Prodg. have ever done. Very rocky.Full Throttle - the closest the album gets to "Experience". Voodoo People - Good single. Catchy, and fun to sing along to the vocal! Speedway - goes on a bit, but screams along at a pace similar to the cars in the background...The Heat(The Energy) - best described by it's title...Poison - slowest on the album, but still good to chill to.No Good (Start The Dance) - back to familiar ground. The best out of all the singles that came from this album.One Love(Edit) - another single, but slightly out of touch with the rest of the album, and I'm not quite sure why...The Narcotic Suite (3 Kilos, Skylined, Claustrophobic Sting) - is an outstanding bookender to a modern music classic. The running time - 13 tracks! 78 minutes! - blows away Experience's 12 tracks/60 min, Fat Of The Land's 10/56 and Dirtchamber's meagre 8/51. And the artwork is fantastic - a face rising out of metal makes for a great cover - not to mention the inner sleeve artwork (policemen swarming out from a dark city toward a bridge, and trying to cross it so they can stop a huge hippie festival over the ravine, but stopped by a knive-wielding freak about to cut the bridge ropes, and giving them all the finger! Oops - I've gone on too long.) What more can I say? This album smashed the dangerous The-Second-Album fears of the pop industry by not only being better than its predecessor, but better than anything else pulled off by anybody in Prodigy ever again. This is fantastic - pure technophile's dream. If that's you - get this now."

A must!

littleoldme | Fort Collins, CO United States | 02/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Easily the best Prodigy album out there, and that's really saying something. All of the tracks are based in energetic hardcore techno, but there's an incredible amount of variety here. Everything from metal guitars ("Their Law") to shattering glass ("Break and Enter") is used as a sample, and all are used effectively. The album doesn't have a single weak track on it, but the true highlights are the singles. "Poison" is probably the darkest track the Prodigy's ever done (**including** "Firestarter" and "Breathe") and it's great. "One Love" sounds a lot like an older rave track, but it works really well and doesn't overstay its welcome. "Voodoo People" uses LIVE guitars and flutes in a breakbeat track that will get you moving like no other. Then there's my favorite: "No Good (Start The Dance)" which pastes together a sped-up soul vocal and a ridiculously intense beat. It'll leave you gasping for air, but in a good way.What else can I say? The music's the best that the band's ever made, and there really isn't a downside. Even the artwork's a lot of fun. Pick this up as soon as you can - you won't be disappointed."

The one Prodigy album that has aged gracefully

M. Hilton | Indianapolis, IN United States | 04/23/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When I first heard pre-Fat of the Land Prodigy, I thought it sounded kind of dated, and got a bigger kick out of FotL's blatant pandering to the American Rock palate. But even that was a guilty pleasure, as this was the mid-90's, the heyday of IDM, and I wore my anorak proudly. ;) Since then I've lost my fear of straight-up dance music, and I have to admit that this album in particular sounds far less dated than the music Autechre and Black Dog were making at the time. The underground ethos within is particularly appealing here in post-9/11 America, where even having a burger feels like taking sides. Yeah, all the overused breakbeats are here, but like Nirvana did with those same tired old three chords, they manage to build something special on top - it just took me time and maturity to hear.As for the music itself? It takes me to the same place in my head as Hendrix, but makes me want to dance until all my troubles have poured out of me like so much sweat. There are sonic and melodic twists and turns that no one else in this style pulled off, even though they had the same arsenal of sounds and beats at their disposal. There is so much in this album to appreciate beyond the superficial trappings of its genre (trappings Prodigy no doubt helped make common) that to try and describe its sound is missing the point. Like an earlier Prodigy album title implies, it needs to be experienced."