Electronic music instigators The Prodigy have just unveiled
another new single ‘Wall of Death’ from their soon to be released album ‘The Day
Is My Enemy’.
The first single from the new album, ‘Nasty’, unfortunately lived
up to its name and failed to impress me. The formulaic trademark disjointed riffs,
grinding bass and brutal breaks were all there, but so were Keith Flint’s
uninspired vocals based around the repetition of the word ‘Nasty’. It all
seemed a little listless and – safe!
The hypocritical thing about ‘Nasty’ is that during a recent
interview for Q Magazine, Liam Howlett denounced that “Dance music across all types has become formula-based, It's'here's your drum fill, here's your build.’ all that DJ bollocks and tutorialson YouTube shit.” He then went on to say
“This album is totally organic, pure violent energy." A bold
statement that ‘Nasty’ failed to live up to.
With this in mind, I didn’t have high expectations for ‘Wall
of Death’, but I tuned in and listened with an open mind. I was pleasantly
surprised. The structure of the song isn’t massively different from anything
they’ve released before, but I did start to feel that aggression and energy
that Howlett had been promising us with the new album.
Whether or not ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ is going to surpass
expectations and live up to its hype is open to question; but considering The
Prodigy used to be pioneers of electronic music, in the centre of controversy
with socio-political albums like ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’ and notorious
90’s anthems from ‘Fat of the Land’, I would say they have their work cut out.
I can’t help wondering if they’ve left the release of this album a few years
too many.
