The Prodigy - 'Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned' (XL)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
It's a strange time to start a Prodigy backlash, for it was when they were releasing rather silly, almost novelty records and dressing like children's entertainers who got lost and over-excited in Camden one Saturday afternoon that we all thought they could do no wrong. But after some dodgy live sets, the 'temporary' heave ho for most of the band and the first truly dreadful Prodigy single ever ('Baby's Got A Temper' - thankfully, it's not on the record), to knock them down that one peg further would be oh so temptingly, perhaps even rewardingly easy. To praise them for making the most difficult to second guess album they could have come up with would be much more difficult. So, here's giving the latter a go.
Guest singers abound, the sacking of nearly an entire group, more samples than a urine testing facility, you know the score. It's a dance album, as every Prodigy record ever conceivable will be. But this time, it's almost as if Liam Howlett feels repulsed by the formula he helped to create, as the not-so-shocking-any-more rock/rap posturing finds no place here. On 'Always Outnumbered...', The Prodigy don their glad rags, pick up some Hollywood mates, and camp it up.
They pick up Juliette Lewis on the first stop, and she sputters her way through 'Spitfire' as if every syllable was as potentially dangerous as any one of her gun shots in 'Natural Born Killers'. Like the rest of the record, the sound is absolutely huge. Then 'Girls', one of the band's all-time greats, a sparkly little pondering on the benefits of fame which sounds like what would happen if Basement Jaxx took all the boring sections out of their songs and just left us with the bits that make parts of out body want to shake. It's an exhilarating entry that seems to kick any warning signs quite convincingly to the wayside.
So no, 'Always Outnumbered...' is not a failure in any way. There is in every track an instance recognisable as the old Prodigy attitude confronting itself with a new world of possibilities, a new palette of sounds, a new host of collaborators - precisely what should have happened to them all along, but a good few years earlier than this. Where it does falter is not from sounding out of date, tired or irrelevant, but just slightly overcooked. This is one man's labour of love, consuming many years and much emotion, and as such Howlett can almost be forgiven for losing a little perspective. You lock yourself away to create a masterpiece, but this shuts out anyone who could have pointed out to you that almost everything here could benefit from being a good minute or two shorter.
The list of corking tunes that run overtime almost reads like a track-listing - to name a few; 'Memphis 'O Bells' starts off the trend; the first four minutes of 'Medusa's Path' are hypnotising but the spell wears off for the remaining two; and the case for the inclusion of 'You'll Be Under My Wheels' at all is rather thin. The Prodigy haven't run out of ideas; it's just that they're justifiably so proud of the ones they have that they repeat them too often.
Thankfully, this doesn't stop it being a great party record. 'Get Up Get Off' is an excellent slice of dark abrasion, letting Twista rip over some rampant beat-bashing, 'The Way It Is' meets Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' down a dark alley and leads it off to an all-night rave, and 'Shoot Down' gives the Gallagher brothers a fine, welcome excuse, for once, to not sound like The Beatles.
After being so close to writing them off, this really is more like it - you can smell the attitude and revel in it being used in new, exciting ways. It meanders and loses its train of thought a little along the way, but still ends up at the target, kicking and screaming.
Artists in this article: The Prodigy
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