The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die

Corporate line:
The fifth studio album by the acclaimed and controversial British Electronic act. As one of the most successful and respected Dance groups of recent times, this album sees the return of both Keith Flint and Maxim to the fold for their most exciting album to date. Included are collaborations with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and James Rushent (Does It Offend You Yeah).

The good:
“Invaders Must Die” – Solid dance mix with one of the hottest beats you’ll hear in a long time. It’s the kind of beat that sings to you without needing to say a single word. Actually we wish no one would have said a word.

“Thunder” – Finally Prodigy get a good mix of vocals and beats –even if the same lyrics are repeated a hundred times: “I hear thunder/ but there’s no rain/ this type of thunder breaks walls and windowpane.”

“Warrior’s Dance” – A blitzing soundscape that gets so much closer to where you’d hope this trio would be by now. It’s got a spooky close encounters vibe three minutes in and it never relents.

“Omen Reprise” – It’s bizarre—the reprise actually sounds more relevant. I wonder where they dug up the Phantom of the Opera.

The rest:
“Run with the Wolves” – The reason most people don’t take Prodigy seriously isn’t the sick beats—it’s the stupid rhymes.

“Omen” – A track that sounds like Prodigy is trying way too hard to be dark and cool. It’s neither. The beats are fairly good—but the rhymes are crap.

“Colours” – The lyrics are horrible and the beats sound like colorful noise.

“Piranha” – Seriously? Who writes this crap anyway? It sounds like it came straight from some bad ‘70s movie.

Finally:
The bad news about The Prodigy is that they still don’t know how to get away from the crap. The good news is that The Prodigy can still tear it up. The “Invaders Must Die” album is completely schizophrenic. You have songs like “Invaders Must Die” and “Thunder” which can hang with their classics and then songs like “Piranha” which would get them tossed on their asses. Download the good and be glad you never heard the bad.

Now, on Invaders Must Die, Liam Howlett, Keith Flint and Maxim all featured on the album, which is the first time since the release of Fat Of The Land in 1997. The result is back to their bone shaking best, a collision of old skool rave noise with the stratospheric limits of new technology.

The Prodigy, who have been tearing up the Summer festivals with their blistering live performances, have recently completed the sell out The Invaders Academy Tour, these six dates saw the Prodigy going ‘back to basics’, as explained by the band: “After the two club shows we did in Sheffield and Birmingham earlier this year, we want to carry on that buzz with some smaller shows for the fans ahead of next years full-on album tour. Respect.” The Prodigy have announced their headlining slot at this year’s Ultra Music Festival in Miami on Saturday March 28 during WMC, more dates will be announced shortly.

The band put out a free download as a taster of what’s to come with the title song “Invaders must Die”. This was a huge success and was hailed as the Hottest record in the world by Zane Lowe (Radio 1). On www.theprodigy.com the download and accompanying video stream received in excess of 1 million plays globally in the first 5 days and a further 350,000+ streams in the following week.

Next up, OMEN the first official single to be taken from The Prodigy’s highly anticipated album Invaders Must Die is a white hot shot of pure pumped-up, punk rock Prodigy adrenaline beamed straight into the moshpit from rave central. Omen is everything you have ever wanted from The Prodigy condensed into three eardrum bothering minutes.

Enough to make one froth at the mouth, the original edit for the video for OMEN was originally recalled as the editing was so fast, coupled with the lights of the live shows that it failed the Photosensitivity test that establishes whether or not a video is safe for viewing by people susceptible to seizures caused by rapid flashing lights (only the Prodigy)!

While the video for Omen debuted on the UK’s Channel 4 exclusively at midnight on Saturday January 17th, and Myspace premiered OMEN online kicking off at 5 minutes past midnight on Saturday January 17th, it is now available for us all to see:

‘Invaders Must Die’ (March 3rd) is 40 minutes of having your head battered by future nostalgia, serotonin levels twisted by feel-good horrorcore and your synapses snapped by whiplash attitude. It’s the sound of The Prodigy mixing up genres, contorting the past and rewiring the future, ram-raiding through the tranquility of music’s status quo like a blot on the landscape of England’s dreaming.

Invaders Must Die is the unique sound of The Prodigy, still trespassing after all these years, walking the path they’ve created for themselves. And with that free party attitude still breaking and entering where other’s can only dream of following.