Blizaro - Light and Desolation (2025)

I had encountered some shitposting somewhere about the cover artwork for Blizaro's third proper full-length, Light and Desolation, but I think it must have been the product of someone who didn't quite grasp what was going on here. This is essentially the 'basement doom' album envisioned and performed by your local Dungeon Master, that kind of awkward guy who scribbled all sorts of arcane imagery, logos and monsters in his school notebooks while the rest of you were trying to pay attention to whatever lesson was being taught that day. Which, let's face it, he didn't need to hear, since he was probably already on cruise control to a higher grade, having long since grasped the material. I personally think it looks awesome...amateurish, creepy, enigmatic and quick to unlock the gates of nostalgia that will soon flood over you when listening to it.

The music is almost as eldritch as the artwork, with a very primitive, stripped down sound, clean on the chugging rhythm guitars, never dowsed in any excess layer of studio polish. It does have a 'demo' vibe, which wouldn't be the first time for John Gallo's project, as some of the stuff off the excellent Strange Doorways compilation possessed a similar sincerity. Of all the Blizaro records, I think this one returns most to the fundamentals of the doom metal genre, embellishes them with a range of proggy synths, equally as lo-fi sounding as the rest of the instruments. Minus a few tweaks here or there, this sounds like something you could have dug up in a record bin 30 years ago, when the doom metal genre as a whole was really only starting to snowball itself into a legitimate sub-classification. However, the use of the synths and epic, barbaric vibes created through the vocals and harder rhythm guitar riffs delve into a world much more fantastic than a Pentagram or Trouble; lyrically more in line with Cirith Ungol, sword and sorcery/cosmic horror influences, but the synths and structures here feel much more fresh and...bizarre.

John's vocals are humble, workmanlike, and constantly multi-tracked to create the impression that you are constantly listening to some cult ritual or haunted choir. He might not have the classic range or presence of an Osbourne, Marcolin or Wagner, but his technique grows even more hypnotic the further you journey through the record. In fact, I felt that the entire experience escalated through the entire play length, from the folksy acoustic intro "The Last Winter" all the way to the climactic "Warriors of the New Lands", the best-produced track on the album and one of the best I've ever heard from Blizaro, with charging riffs and loads of atmosphere over the groove of the drums and bass fills, all of which are also performed here by Gallo. There are no stinkers en route, mind you, as tunes like "Lightning Strikes Back" and the titular "Glare of Light and Desolation" totally kill it with a balance of mean, minimal doom riffs with extravagant melodies, harmonies, and a nice acoustic segue here or there.

This is a vibe album, and once it hooks you, there's no letting go as your imagination spirals into a limbo of twisted landscapes, imposing dark castles, demons and wizards and the steel in hand one needs to end such curses and threats. I wasn't immersed as immediately (nor as much) as on City of the Living Nightmare or Cornucopia della morte, or the compilation I mentioned above, but when this one levels up on some tunes, they're the measure of nearly anything John has written before. Just know what you are getting into, a realm of yellowed paperbacks, teenage dreams, horrors eldritch and medieval, darkness and heroism, performed with a panoramic understanding of the genre and its influences, stripped down to its very basics and then re-dressed in starry new robes.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://blizaro.bandcamp.com/album/light-and-desolation

Toxik - In Humanity EP (2020)

While we still might not have arrived at the songwriting level of the Toxik classics World Circus and Think This, the In Humanity EP was the material that really made me think we'd get there if the band were able to once again get a proper full-length out on the market. The new tracks on Kinetic Closure and the Breaking Clas$ EP were worthwhile, no doubt, but In Humanity is really the next step forward, the most experimental stuff Josh had come up with, a mind-snapping morass of clinical and evil sounding melodies, scales and harmonies rooted in groovier rhythm sections, bass popping out all over the place, and then the conversion into these more intense, roiling double-bass sections. But another treat here is that Mike Sanders, the vocalist of World Circus, has returned for this material...

That's pretty neat, it's like a hat trick. You get Charles on the 2017 EP, Mike on another, and a sampling of the able new front-man Ron on the compilation that came out around the same time this did. And Mike might just sound the most pure of the three, giving a crazed performance that rivals the high-pitched siren-calls he meted out on the debut. Some of these songs are structured so interestingly, like "Crooked Crosses" which almost has a Voivod vibe, and it's all pretty stunning during an era when most of the thrash bands were built of sheer nostalgia for the Bay Area or Teutonic sounds, or hellbent on crossover pizza-thrash for partying and dressing the part. Nope, this at least comes off as if its trying to break some new ground in the band's canon, and there wasn't much to compare it to. Perhaps Vektor to an extent, sans the vocal style, but this really hearkens backed to the band's past if it were mixed together with some Realm, Mekong Delta or Deathrow on the brilliant Deception Ignored. It's got those cautionary and immediate vibes to it that present your mind with a social puzzle that you are desperate to unravel.

To be fair, I'm mostly talking about the three core studio tracks ("Too Late, Program Insertion" and "Crooked Crosses") which were available on the demo for this some years earlier. There are also some additional demo tunes here which add some more value, despite having a more repressed, boxy tone to their production, and then an instrumental, "Lunacy's Fringe", which is quite a mess beyond the piano parts, and is by far the least compelling thing on the release. However, these are add-ons and not to be confused with the promise shown by the EP proper, some truly exciting shit that had me absolutely jazzed for whatever might happen next...and something DID happen.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://toxikmetal.net/

Toxik - Kinetic Closure (2020)

Kinetic Closure is the sort of obligatory re-recording of classic tracks that you might expect with a 'comeback band' once they've got some new members in the fold and want to modernize their material, whether it's because they genuinely think it needs to be brought in line with whatever else is going on, or because they have some issues with the original recordings. There's a new singer here in Ron Iglesias, who honestly does his best to channel his predecessors, often succeeding in the higher pitched delivery, and the production of the instruments is not a far cry from the originals. Louder, more aggressive with the newer drumming, new cover art that ports Think This into the Trump era. To be fair, this was a pretty limited release, so nobody was touting this as some important milestone for the band, and it's usually going to be picked up alongside Breaking Clas$ and In Humanity on the III Works collection, where it's a better valey; but this ultimately falls short to me.

There are just some glaring differences in the production and vocal delivery that don't vibe with me as well as either of the original albums, even though the whole band puts in an earnest attempt. Josh is obviously still a ludicrous player that can match himself, the plunkier bass lines and more intense drums were sure to attract younger thrashers who had grown up on more extreme metal than even the frenetic thrash of that late 80s period. Ron is a good singer and I certainly wanted to hear him on newer material, but at best he plays it safe with the screaming of the earlier front-men, and at other times he sounds a little off. For me, the most attractive part of this is hearing the material from the Kinetic Closure single, a pair of tracks that goes off into the more bizarre, experimental thrash tangent that the In Humanity stuff did. These tunes are both nuts and I think I like them even more than the Breaking Clas$ EP, they certainly got me juiced up for modern Toxik more-so than hearing the other tunes I already knew from my teenage years.

Crazy rhythmic spiraling thrash that helps maintain that surgical feel while dropping a lot of the band's more traditional speed/power metal roots in favor of some occasional mid-paced thrash before the following fatal flurries of Christian's highly technical approach. "No Rest for the Wicked" might be the slightly more catchy of the pair, with more ties to the older material, but "Kinetic Closure" itself is a little further into the asylum and a sign of where the band would head with its next, proper third full-length. At any rate, like their other EPs, this felt like the natural direction the band would have taken if not for the decades between formations, and that's a good thing, we didn't have Toxik coming back with some shitty nu-metal or metalcore and a completely ability to read the room. They knew where they left off, they knew what we wanted, and they began delivery with syringes of shrieking, bludgeoning technique. But as relatively, polished as the re-recordings were, I don't find them necessary.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://toxikmetal.net/

Toxik - Breaking Clas$ EP (2017)

Toxik was another of those 80s thrash hopefuls that I'm pretty sure most of us old heads never thought we'd hear from again, so when they had a proper reformation in the 2010s I was quite elated to hear more of that hybrid of thrash, speed and power metal that they initiated with their shrieking debut World Circus, and then refined in the more memorable, progressive Think This. The Breaking Class$ EP more or less gets them back on the horse, and frankly sounds like a natural continuation on their sophomore sound, if leaning a bit more towards the clinical, scalpel-riffing thrash (which they'd delve even further into later). The material reunites reunites axe-lord Josh Christian with Charles Sabin's vocals, and a new rhythm section in Shane Boulos and James deMaria that moves in lockstep to the janky rhythmic explorations found herein.

Yes, this was the most technical wizardry and arguable 'experimentation' you'd have heard from Toxik yet, building upon the potential of the second full-length, nudging just past it, but not necessarily in a flashy way. A lot of the strong moments here on these three tracks are slower to mid-paced grooves in which Josh splays out all these surgical, melodic riffing patterns that give this one a real eerie, cautionary vibe about it. Lots of double bass driving the rhythms to help modernize them from the 80s material, but as they swerve into the chorus hooks, it will definitely come across as material that could have fit right in with Think This. Intelligent thrash metal which delivers the listener of this niche an adventure that they simply hadn't been on through the leagues of pizza-thrash nostalgia, Bay Area or Teutonic cloning that so many of the re-thrash bands pursued. All the players are on point here, whether they're speeding along at a rapid clip or breaking into grooves or even a few riffs that sound tongue-in-cheek, like in the blazing title track.

Sabin might not be quite so effortlessly shrill here as he was decades before, but he still sounds rather good and I've always enjoyed the shifts between his mid-ranged raving and the creepier high pitch that he alternates in to give this that more psychotic, thrilling feel. The guitars are obviously top notch as this man is just one of our East Coast scene's unsung heroes in the field, making it all sound easy but still prioritizing riffs or leads that will catch your ear rather than jerk himself off. As a sampler EP of a potential future Toxik, this was quite encouraging to hear after so many years, and though I know this wasn't technically their first material since getting back on the train (the In Humanity demo came out before, but I hadn't really listened through it), they really feel as if no time has passed at all, other than maybe the drumming. The songs here aren't quite Think This-level quality, but certainly solid.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://toxikmetal.net/

Prong - State of Emergency (2023)

There seems to have been a reinvigorated interest in Prong lately, with what might be their most hyped album in ages, a swank tour with the greatest band on Earth (and beyond) Voivod, which is unfortunately not coming anywhere near my neck of the woods (god damnit). State of Emergency itself continues along that path of polished thrash that Tommy Victor has been on since the surprising Carved Into Stone back in 2012, which I'm sure is a relief for some, but obviously lacks most of the industrial elements that the band was performing quite well on Rude Awakening or Cleansing, as well as the really interesting and weird, organically mechanical rhythms the band was feeding us when they blew up on Beg to Differ or Prove You Wrong. Naturally, this also isn't a foray back into the raunchy sewer thrash of the magnificent Force Fed.

No, State of Emergency is in reality a pretty standard array of groove/thrash rhythms given personality through Tommy Victor's vocals and the occasional twist of melodic chord patterns reminiscent of Rude Awakening or Carved in Stone which help to balance out the taut chugging force. It's nearly identical to the last four original studio albums, and that's not a bad thing, since he's really settled into this style alongside bassist Jason Christopher who has now been a part of the proceedings for nearly a decade. He has a simple style, which supports the structure of Victor's rhythm guitars with a good tone, making for an appreciable impact; but it doesn't venture off on its own quite enough, and I do think the simpler riffing patterns would certain allow for that. On the other hand, the new drummer, Griffin McCarthy does an awesome job, slapping out a lot of fills and grooves to help amplify the material without attempting to extremify it too much, which just wouldn't work on such basic grooves. As for Victor, he's always had that relatable, gruff tough guy timbre and sounds awesome here, barking off with a few effects here or there to make it feel sleek and modern.

I do think the album gets better as it goes along, really picking up with tracks like "Light Turns Black" or "Who Told Me" which go for broke a little more and grow catchier as a result. The opener track "The Descent" has propulsive riffing energy, and makes sense in that position, but it feels like a good 12-14 minutes pass before it's grabbing me, other than the squeals in "Breaking Point" or that melodic floe of chords in "Non-Existence". But pretty much the entire second half of State of Emergency is flooded with the more emotional style of chorus, and the riffing really supports that. Even the cover of Rush's "Working Man" really thrives in context, and unlike a lot of covers it actually functions alongside the band's original material. I also noticed that the few little spurts of effects or industrial influences that do sneak through here almost always stir my interest, and wouldn't mind if they brought more of that back into the songwriting for the future.

Ultimately, I found this the best Prong album since Carved in Stone, though I don't think it exactly laps their more recent output like Zero Days or X - No Absolutes. Though some of the riffing choices are short on nuance or innovation, the sum package is largely consistent after a predictable start, and the band still retains its distinct feel from the rest of its genre. So while it's not at all any sort of comeback album, the hype is deserved, this has always been a worthy East Coast thrash band throughout most of its incarnations and stylistic shifts, with only 1-2 sub-par studio offerings in the earlier 2000s, long since compensated for with much stronger determination, tapping into the core, urban fundamentals while streamlining them for an audience of today.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Ill Bill/Ghoul EP (2018)

I have not kept up with the horror rap or 'horrorcore' subgenre of hip hop since the concept was introduced to me by groups like Flatlinerz or the Gravediggaz back in the 90s, so artists like Necro or Ill Bill have been entirely off my radar, until I saw this amusing idea for a split between the latter and Creepsylvania's death/thrash champions Ghoul. It's not the sort of team up you experience every day, and the hope for me was that the two acts would integrate one another's styles and make this splattery looking collectible a memorable trip to gory excess and some streetwise badassery, but the fact is that couldn't be further from the truth...this is just two entirely different groups doing their own thing with little regard for how it matches up as a product with the other, and the result is all too lopsided and obviously not in the favor of the rapper...

Ill Bill's track (featuring 'Goretex', and really, every fucking hip hop track these days has to be a 'feature' of some sort) is basically a mix of El-P sounding lyrical flow with beats and atmosphere that sounds a lot like the Wu-Tang Clan. It starts out with a pretty cool sample, and the production also seems like it'll be decent, but after about a moment it loses its luster and the rhyming just feels repetitive. It does sort of give off a horror in tha hood vibe with the synthesizers and effects, but the lyrics don't really hone in on the subject all that much and so one wonders why nobody told him to make it a little scarier. On the other hand, Ghoul's contribution, "Splatterthrash 2: Thrash Damage", is quite an excellent and explosive tune with a lot of energy behind it, a good sense for melody and I'd run it up against any single song on their most recent album Dungeon Bastards. Gang shouts, thrashing, jerking rhythms and the tune utterly beats the rap into a bloody pulp and it's not even funny. You'd might as well thrown a Boyz II Men track on the A-side and it would have the same effect. 

Really, to make this work you'd have needed a pretty sinister sounding rap artist with a heavier cut, and maybe even some samples from Ghoul riffs or whatever. I appreciate that the two acts are friends or just mutual admirers and wanted to show their love for horror and splatter but it just feels like a gimmick. If this was a 7" with two great new Ghoul tracks I would have liked it infinitely more, but as it stands I can really only award most of the points here to the Creepsylvanians and hope that they'll toss this tune on the next full-length as a bonus track so most people can experience it in a superior environment.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

http://www.creepsylvania.com/
https://illbill.bandcamp.com/

Wooden Stake - A Feast of Virgin Souls (2015)

Another of many projects within the extended Razorback family to cross over members, Wooden Stake revolves around Vanessa Alucarda of Howling, Scaremaker, Orloff, and Surgikill, among many other acts. She was partnered up with the prolific Wayne 'Elektrokutioner' Sarantopoulos for the earlier album Dungeon Prayers & Tombyard Serenades and several other splits and EPs, but here is joined by her fellow Vaultwraith maniac William Warlaw for this sophomore effort, which somewhat steps away from the death/doom of previous outings for a focus leaning more on the latter half of that pairing. She still uses harsher snarls and growls fairly often, but the guitars themselves are written more with a mix of mournful traditional doom and heavy metal aesthetics in mind, a nice complement to the Gothic horror ritualism and occult themes within the lyrics.

If you couldn't tell by the lascivious cover artwork, A Feast of Virgin Souls kind of plays out like an X-rated alternate to a Hammer Horror flick: slow and steadily paced, not terribly action-oriented, with a lavish colorful palette for suffering. Atmosphere is established early on with the bass and synth-driven into "Dead Winter Resurrection" before you are introduced to the reverb-soaked, eerie doom riffing which traces its lineage back to stuff like Candlemass or Pentagram, with a few more Trouble-like groove riffs here or there. The beats are sufficient to create a genuine momentum along with a couple fills, but it's really Wardlaw's guitars and Vanessa's vocals that make this experience. I'm more accustomed to hearing her snarls or growls, which are here in abundance, but generally as a complement to her cleans, which are actually pretty good. In fact, they wouldn't be out of place in trendier groups like a Witch Mountain or Windhand, only Wooden Stake specializes far more in despair and lamentation than the more stoner-heavy vibes from those. In tracks like "Alzbeta: The Devil's Bitch", they actually sound quite effective being matched up with her sustained snarling.

Occasionally this record creates a hypnotic effect with a beat plodding along while William nails you with some of those good old bendy Sabbath notes (also in "Alzbeta") and Vanessa creates a sort of vampiric narration below. Quite evil and cool, but this record is also pretty effective when they veer a little more towards the group's death/doom origins on "Cross-Scalded Flesh". There are few songs that fall behind any others, with highlights coming in the title track, "Hanging from the Inverted Cross" and the finale "Curse of the Cauldron Countess", all stuff that would appeal to a lot of doom and horror fans if this band could ever get on their radars. The lyrics are likewise well written. The one weakness here is probably in the ability of the band to transition, they'll come in with a single pattern or tempo in mind, and offer you some variation, but it always feels uninteresting in its execution. They could also experiment a little more with the atmospherics, maybe some more organs, flutes and so forth could really help flesh this out. But A Feast of Virgin Souls is unquestionably catchy despite this roughness about its edges. I think with busier, organic drumming and maybe some more oversight and editing into how the tunes are structured, you could have a killer band.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/woodenstake/

Prong - Zero Days (2017)

Zero Days frontloads what I believe to be its least compelling track, "However It May Ends", one of the heavier here to be sure, with a big brute Biohazard groove and some stock thrashing passages, but even there you can tell they're trying to round it out really well with a cool, melodic chord pattern behind the pre-chorus. That's not to forgive a lot of the vapid, boring chugging that fuels it, but I doubt too many people would hear this opener and feel like the band is in any way lacking an energy far beyond its years, even if you cannot stand the somewhat lackluster creativity of the riffs. While this is a symptom of a few tracks on the disc, I'm happy to say that overall this is the best of the albums since Carved Into Stone, and the effort that went both the production and variation is more than apparent.

Like X - No Absolutes before it, Zero Days plays like a sort of career retrospective packed into a singular experience that is streamlined through the loud, punchy production. You've got a lot of material here that is pretty much pure thrash, weighted by walls of dense palm muted riffs that are likely trying to keep it heavier and relevant with a lot of the popular styles of the 21st century. A lot of attention to detail is given to the lead guitars, and there are even obscure little tributes I noticed in a few of the songs. For instance, in the title track, there's a point where you're getting these hyper picked, dingy little guitar rhythms behind the bridge which remind me a whole lot of the tone and style on Force Fed. Some of the note progressions and structure of "Rulers of the Collective" feels a LOT like "Rude Awakening", almost as if they took that track and just remade parts of it, tucked it away on the latter half of this album to see if any of us were paying attention. These are probably too subtle details for many to pick out, but I just wanted to reiterate how cognizant this record is of the stuff Prong had written before it.

That said, they do try new patterns, catchy chorus parts we've not heard before like in "The Whispers", a cut that partly feels like it would have been a natural on Cleansing. "Interbeing" is one of my favorites, opening with a very Testament style thrash riff and delivering on some of Tommy's most interesting and almost robotic sounding vocals, with a pre-chorus and chorus that really paid off. "Divide and Conquer" is another fresh-feeling track with some nice bass effects, and a bit of a Helmet feel only through that more mechanical Prong lens...again, another very strong chorus which wouldn't be out of place on the alt rock radio. New bassist Mike Longworth fit in smoothly with a huge tone and plenty of moody lines that enhanced the tracks, primarily in the verses, although he would soon be replaced by Jason Christopher's return the following year. The lyrics are solid, Victor turning in the consummate professional performance all around, as he should with the massive level of experience he's got writing and touring in some pretty huge bands. Arturo Cruz, who ironically would be leaving himself after this, also has a flawless contribution, drumming that can flex with whatever style Prong is cycling through at any given instant, and emphasizing the groove and heaviness, even where it feels the most generic. And that's about my only real complaint, some of the heavier riffs here are just too bland, been there, done that, even predictably djenty in "Compulsive Future Projection"...and everything else just deserved better. But it's still a good album if you're willing to embrace its broad appeal.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - X - No Absolutes (2016)

The tenth Prong full-length once again revisits the bands hardcore thrashing roots, drawing a lot of parallels to their early offerings like Primitive Origins and Force Fed, with the caveat that they've kept on board the modern production choices that defined a lot of their other 21st century recordings. It's arguably got one of the better studio sounds they've every pulled off, at least for the ears of a contemporary audience used to the clarity and loudness rather than the rough edges that outlines a lot of thrash records back in the 80s. X - No Absolutes has its moments, but ultimately I found the album a little frustrating in just how many of the tracks were so close to being great, but just didn't have quite enough of a catchy riff-set or chorus to totally stick with me; it's an album I 'like', but one that could have easily been a 'love' with some further tweaking.

Now, while I stand behind my earlier statement that this was a band going for a more stripped down and straightforward flashback to their formative style, that's not to say they completely abandon the steps they've taken along the way. You'll still traces of the groove metal of the lame Scorpio Rising on a few cuts like "Without Words", although it's more effective and better-written, butting up against the more uptempo crossover/street thrash a la "Sense of Ease", or "Cut and Dry" which brings back a bit of that mechanical oomph that structured records like Beg to Differ. They also still use a lot of the more melodic chorus parts in tunes like the titular "No Absolutes" with a pretty decent harmony. A lot of focus goes onto the lead guitars throughout the album, and while few of them are really what I'd describe as a show-stopper, they're all competent and effective in their respective tracks. Tommy's voice sounds fantastic and distinct as it almost always does, effortlessly channeling both the urban bluntness and the more occasional melodic phrasings that keep it interesting. The rhythm section of Cruz and Christopher keeps it all locked pretty tightly, although I'd almost never say the drums or bass are ever features of this record.

The one side they don't really touch much here is the industrial/electronic stuff, but instead there are a few tunes deeper in the track list like "Belief System" or "In Spite of Hindrances", where they're trying something slightly different, like a dramatic, choppy, heavy alt radio rock. I can see how these might turn some of the audience off, but I can't say they sound all that bad in this context, even if these are far from my favorite tunes on the album. Prong is never going to be Linkin Park or Sum 41, but I'm hardly offended when they do a decent job with the more accessible fare, and it's at least better written than what, say, Kreator was coming up with on Endorama. I just think it's sort of tucked away where few people are ever going to explore it, and when run against some of the harder hitting cuts on the album like "Sense of Ease" or "Worth Pursuing" it might create too much of a disparity. X - No Absolutes might actually feel like the 'matured' Prong, still loyal to some degree to what burst them up through the manholes onto the scene in the later 80s, but produced for ears that have spent the ensuing decades listening to rock radio. The brashness and venom have been drained out of the sound, but they still sound very much themselves, and this album is about on the level with its predecessor Ruining Lives when all is said and done.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Age of Defiance EP (2019)

Age of Defiance is, I'm assuming, a teaser for whatever the band is to release as a follow-up to 2017's full-length Zero Days, paired up with a trio of live cuts from a German club date back in the middle of this last decade. I was immediately taken with the dense sound they pulled off in the studio, whether they're banging out heavier chords or chugging along this one sounds like what we might have expected of a modern Prong in the 21st century, and yet it manages not to lose the subtleties created by the warmer melodic chords and Victor's voice. A full-length album with punch like this is going to turn a lot of heads and work wonders towards the trio's relevance movement forward into yet another decade, but at the same time I'm not going to say that these are necessarily their best songs.

Essentially you're getting a microcosm of many of the band's evolutionary shifts all in one package. There are still plenty of basic thrashing guitars, especially in "End of Sanity", though they were rather bland riff-wise, reminding me there of maybe Testament. The vocals are great with all the backups, and the chorus chords tend to be the more interesting parts of the songs, with some nice lead guitars to flesh them out. The rhythm section sounds great in this mix, the drums thunder along and though the bass doesn't do much of its own thing, it's thick enough to be noticed against the meat of those guitars. I think "Age of Defiance" itself is the better of the two new tunes, largely because of that melodic airiness created through the guitars in contrast to the churning, chuggy lows. It doesn't sound unlike a track from the Cleansing era, there are even some small electronic flourishes, and just a very satisfying chorus even if the verses feel underwhelming outside of their production. I think these work well enough as a sampling of what the next album could sound like, I just hope Tommy has stocked up some better, more varied riffs to go with the excellent vocal performances.

The live cuts sound alright, perhaps not as good as on the 100% Live album, but the tones sound pretty thick and effective on "Rude Awakening", "Another Worldly Device", and "Cut Rate", the latter two kicking some butt like they used to. It's interesting that all three of those tunes are from that 1994-1996 era, maybe Prong is telling us that those styles will be the focus in the near future, or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it. At any rate, while these lives don't disappoint, they will never be a reason for me to spin this, I'd rather have had more originals, so they're not exactly a huge value, though they do work well aesthetically with the new material. We'll have to hear where it all goes from this point, but if nothing else Age of Defiance reveals that Prong could potentially put out a more substantial, killer sounding disc, and the tracks at least have some seeds of memorable ideas.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Songs from the Black Hole (2015)

Songs from the Black Hole is not the first instance of Prong dishing out a few cover tunes, they've done a few before like "Get a Grip On Yourself" by The Stranglers back on Prove You Wrong in '91, but here the entire focus is on selecting, performing, and producing a professional series of covers from an eclectic range of influences. Considering the range of styles Tommy Victor and company have cycled through as they evolved the sound of this and, I thought this might prove a fairly interesting tribute, and at least as far as the track selection I wasn't wrong. They draw pretty heavily on some of their hardcore, punk and post-hardcore faves, which makes sense since their earlier thrash records totally emerged from the primacy of the NYHC, and as also might be expected you get a few cases of industrial or Gothic rock which clearly rubbed off on records like Cleansing and Rude Awakening.

They certainly have good taste, and the sound here is about as clean cut and polished as any in their career, at least on the level with Carved in Stone, even on the nastier punk and hardcore tracks they pick like "Doomsday" from Discharge and  "The Bars" by Black Flag. They're a natural at these, and Victor's voice sounds pretty good channeling all the proto-hardcore rage, so even if they sound slicker and less nasty than the originals they're totally energy-charged and fun to listen through. I thought the rendition of "Vision Thing" by Sisters of Mercy was rather bland, or rather it just felt too close to the original and not terribly Prong-i-fied, but on a similar note Killing Joke's "Seeing Red" is really excellent, as their cover of "Give Me the Cure" from Fugazi. Bad Brains' "Banned in D.C." will give you another swift kick in the ass, and they manage to twist the Butthole Surfers' "Goofy's Concern" into something fun. I think the one that they most successfully transform into a Prong number here is the Adolescents' "Kids of the Black Hole", and along with "Seeing Red" it was one of my faves on the album, just sounds like something they could have put on one of their own albums in the mid to late 90s before the hiatus.

The track that is most out side their box though is Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer", which is still played with a lot of the drab bluesy abandon you might expect from the original, although they do electrify it a bit more. I'm not actually a big fan of the tune or Young in general, so I constantly just felt like ending the album with track #9, but Prong definitely does a respectable job of it. And that's really the selling point here, diehards who want to hear where some of the band's inspiration hails from will be treated to well structured, well produced material that largely shines a light on such influences. Maybe a few of these are outliers and don't factor much into the regular Prong sound, but Discharge, Black Flag, and Bad Brains clearly did in their formation, and Butthole Surfers and Killing Joke would inform a little of their evolution in the 90s. Would I ever recommend this over their original albums? Not a chance...in fact, despite the level of care they obviously put into this, I do get a little bored with some of it, and if I do spin Songs from the Black Hole I'm headed straight for just 2-3 of the tunes. If you're new to the band you really want the first five albums, or maybe Carved in Stone. I don't even know that I'd recommend it to Prong fans unless they really want to hear this voice over someone else's material. But I don't have a lot of negative to say, on a technical level it's a solid product as far as these cover anthologies go.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Ruining Lives (2014)

The ground Prong gained with their 2012 'return to form' Carved in Stone was theirs to lose, and while Ruining Lives doesn't quite reach the same heights as its predecessor, it follows its example pretty closely, but actually intensifies the formula with some even more charged up aggression and speed. That doesn't translate into better songs, necessarily, but the audience would at least be snapping its fingers and necks throughout the majority of its 42 minute barrage. The eye impaled on the fork might have returned, but don't expect any return to the more industrialized, laid back grooves of the mid 90s Cleansing era, this is through and through a thrasher with just a few more of those catchy rock-oriented chorus parts here, but it by no means leans on them as much as the heaviness.

The lineup was stabilized from the prior effort, but there are a few production differences, for instance this one has a more caustic sound to the guitars which makes it hit a lot harder, perhaps a small nod back to the days of Force Fed, but nowhere near as brash, raw and atmospheric. The playing is dextrous and intense, the leads come flying at you like birds of prey crashing to the earth to snatch something up in their talons. Victor's guitars sound like he had somehow reversed his aging process, or maybe just showing us that he wasn't always lighting up the frets and whipping the hair around as he always could have been. This does occasion get Prong lost in the shuffle of other, more rapid fire thrash bands sprouting up at the time, but there's still enough here that sounds distinctly like this band that you they never scratch their identity. A few of the harder hitting, double bass driven progressions can be a little predictable, and this album has a higher ratio of forgettable riff patterns than the one before it, to the point that a lot of the tracks that relied heavier on breaks with the bass guitars ("Absence of Light") automatically sink their hooks in more because it stands out from the more exhausting heaviness around it.

There's still a degree of nuance and creativity happening where it can, and the vocals carve straight through you. In this particular mix they almost sound more futuristic, especially when he's layering down some backing tracks for himself, the limited melodic dynamics he spits out are very effective against the brickwork of the drums and rhythm guitars. I do think Campos got drowned out a bit here, you can hear the presence of the bass but it's just not competing at the level needed against these guitars, and seems like it just shadows them too much, except on a track like "Self Will Not Riot" where they get a little bit funkier and pop out more. Not a ton of tracks on this one that I ever find myself whistling when not in the presence of the album itself, but I found "Remove, Separate Self", "The Book of Life" and the others I mentioned in the review to be its strongest, and then of the rest you're at least getting some genuine fury like the opening combo of "Turnover" and "The Barriers". Not Prong's finest hour, perhaps, but still a damn sight better than Scorpio Rising, and at least it gave me confidence that Carved in Stone wasn't some late-stage positive fluke in their career.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Carved Into Stone (2012)

After 16 years of nothing consequential happening, I admit I had pretty much discounted Prong from ever mattering to me again. I could always enjoy the first decade of material they released and ignore the rest, but Tommy Victor and his latest round of recruits Alexei Rodriguez and Tony Campos had other plans, recording and releasing their best material in all those years. Carved Into Stone is partly a return to the energized thrash roots of Force Fed, but it brings along all the lessons the band learned after that in terms of production, and also some of the post-hardcore and groove metal influences, though the industrialized phase of the band had largely been phased out by this point (not entirely, see below). This record might not have all of their catchiest or best written tracks, but damn if it isn't a consistent and effective affirmation of most of the band's strengths leading up to it, and as far as I'm concerned this remains the band's benchmark for the 21st century; the formula they've been trying to maintain ever since.

Kicking off with what is arguably the band's purest thrash joint since 1990, "Eternal Heat", the trio plays in total lockstep, furious clips of Victor's thrashing guitars emphasized heavily by the drums and low end of the bass to create a flailing, punching entity that is easy to get excited about. As far as riff construction, there are tons of callbacks here to progressions from Beg to Differ, Cleansing and Prove You Wrong, even if they're not complete copies. Sticking with what's safe, perhaps, but doing so with a fury. Tommy's vocals sound so much better on this album than the two before it that it's almost like he had emerged from some sort of rehab. A lot of that has to do with the production, which sounds great with the backing tracks, and while even his melodic side retains that urban toughness you'd expect, it's the best he's sounded. You still get some of the grunting chorus parts, but they sound a lot more controlled and complementary to the music than they did on the unfortunate Scorpio Rising. The leads are also more energized and memorable here than on nearly anything else they'd ever come up with, and the whole affair is pure professionalism, and not at all to the detriment of the level of aggression they're meting out.

Also vital to the album is that they keep a lot of the very catchy choruses with the melodic chord patterns and slightly cleaner, more emotional vocals, "Revenge...Best Served Cold" being one that comes right to mind, a tune that would have fit right in on any of their 1991-1996 material. "State of Rebellion" is another highlight, and this one's one of the scarce love letters to their industrial side with those pumping bass lines in the verses and the creepy, shrill electronics in the background that make it sound like you're trying to solve a Scooby Doo mystery from the middle of a mosh pit. I can't even think of a truly weak tune on the album...even "Subtract" with its bland verse groove riffs is accented by a great chorus and skillful vocal delivery. The lyrics are quite good, some of the best they've had through their career, and even the cover art, while still staying simple, is at least less of an eyesore than the couple albums before it. I was thoroughly satisfied with this album when it showed up, and still break it out for regular rotations almost as often as I do the first five.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] 
https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Power of the Damn Mixxxer (2009)

It's weird that anyone would feel that an average album like Power of the Damager would necessitate an album full of electro industrial remix tracks, but perhaps the band felt like they had strained a bit too much of that sound out of the album and wanted to toss the fans of records like Cleansing and Rude Awakening, or themselves, or the hypothetical industrial metal-based portion of their audience, a bone. Bring on a bunch of the band's friends from groups like Pitchshifter, Anthrax, Dope and even The Dillinger Escape Plan to tweak the knobs and see what they can do with this material, after all it was a partly forgettable experience to begin with, and perhaps this sort of collaborative experiment to bring out some sort of qualities in it we hadn't heard before...

I won't go that far in dubbing it a success, but what I can say is that Power of the Damn MiXXXer is at least far better than the atrocious Whose Fist Is This Anyway? remix EP from back in 1992. The mixers involved here seemed to give the tunes a good listen and try and extract the riffs, vocals and grooves into something almost dance-worthy that made sense. Granted, was anyone asking for an hour of industrial dance remixes from a band that had seen better days about 15 years before? Was a bargain bin KMFDM necessary when you could still enjoy (or endure) the real thing? Probably not, and this remains one of the more useless outings in the Prong canon, but there's no question that it was put together with some degree of care, with each of the original tracks being given its own shot at shining in this alternate format, and "The Banishment" getting two versions. Some of them feel like pretty generic rave beats with thrash guitars applied to them, but you do still get a little of the vague emotional impact from the choruses of the originals, even with those rhythmic differences.

One other thing I appreciated was that, having had problems with the production on Power of the Damager, a lot of that has vaporized here, as the guitars are given more cutting mixes, and in particular Tommy Victor's vocals actually sound far better here. A lot of the other things they added in like synth lines or industrial pulses are quite cut & dry, generic and don't show a lot of creativity if you've explored the techno or industrial genres yourself, but they'll do in a pinch. A few tunes like the title track get an even bigger evolution which almost feels like J.G. Thirlwell got to them, as in the original tune is abstracted more and its ideas translated more into the noisier synths and beats. This isn't necessarily a sign of higher quality, but at least Prong didn't want this all arranged to evoke too much monotony, you're getting a decent dynamic range, for instance the jungle mix of "Pure Ether" with the filtered, robotic vocals, quite a stretch from the original or even its neighbors here, but not ultimately that effective. So in the end, respectable, but I wouldn't say any of these were going to distract me from the better Prong efforts or any other EBM/industrial or electronica that I frequent.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Power of the Damager (2007)

Power of the Damager is by no means one of the highlights of the Prong discography, and it's nowhere near as distinct as the albums they were churning out through the 90s, but compared to Scorpio Rising before it, I had the sense that a metro commuter rail which had nearly fallen off its tracks had suddenly righted itself and then proceeded to the next station with few casualties. This album might best be described as the band's return to thrash, although it doesn't abandon any of the influences that had shaped Victor's songwriting in the previous decade. Another way to look at it is that's it quite similar to a record like Cleansing, only with most of the industrial bells & whistles removed for a more straightforward, street brawl structure that would more closely resemble how it was going to feel at a live event. Stylistically, also directly sets up the streak of albums to follow it, thankfully an era in which the group would get its groove back and no longer teeter on the brink of embarrassment.

This one comes out swinging, with a pair of punchy thrashers which actually deliver a small dose of NYHC in their chord constructions, while maintaining the pinches and squeals Tommy is so fond of embellishing his meatier riffs with. They could have opened up a Biohazard gig easily with some of this stuff. The guitars have this really processed, pugilistic feel to them which sound potent, but also can muddle up the rest of the mix. That's actually one of the areas where this one falls short, I just don't love how it sounds, perhaps a bit too bulky and I don't always love how the vocals and guitars drown out the little background melodies or even the drums. Also, there are a couple dumb grooves in tunes like "3rd Option" which by 2007 felt really passe even by meathead mallcore or nu metal standards around the turn of the century. Fortunately these are pretty scarce, and many of the riffs do deliver a modicum of thrashing entertainment, but I feel like a better production on the guitars would have made several of them shine a lot brighter. The rhythm section is as solid as always, but they do have to contend with that bludgeoning as well as a lot of Tommy's angrier brute vocals which have clearly rubbed off a little from Scorpio Rising, just not as awkwardly.

There's an EP worth of decent Prong material here, in particular "Pure Ether" and "Worst of It" which focus more on the balance of heaviness with catchier, melodic chord patterns that remind me of stuff they were doing on Rude Awakening or Cleansing that I liked. These aren't also without production issues, for example Victor's vocals on "Worst of It" sound almost like a badly mixed Mike Muir, but musically they get their point across and I enjoy the blend of thrash and post-hardcore elements. A few others also deliver, but on the whole I think you could erase half this material from existence and nobody would really miss it, possibly not even the band. However, I don't mean to imply that it's at all terrible, whereas Scorpio Rising made me cringe a whole lot just to get at the painfully few tasty bits, this one sees them in regular rotation, only they aren't being served well by the production choices or the weirdly 'blunt' cover artwork. See what I did there?

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Scorpio Rising (2003)

I don't think there's any question that Prong was already flirting with groove and nu metal on their 90s albums like Cleansing or Rude Awakening, and they were possibly even an influence on a few of the bands in that style; but Scorpio Rising was the first unfortunate instance in which they themselves started to adopt the style to the point where it felt intrusive and distracting, like they were trying to bring on some of those more modern influence and in the process dumbing down their own unique aesthetics. This was not as shocking, or as awful as, say, Diabolus in Musica, because Tommy Victor and friends eased us into this evolution It's not quite the disaster that some of the bigger metal bands ran into as they were trying to court an even more mainstream audience, but it IS bad, the worst Prong album in the discography and remains awkward to listen to even today.

The riffs here are mostly big, dumb groove metal riffs, not the first they've written, but they don't really stand out as other than flexing some muscle in a niche that had already gotten annoying and tired even by the early 21st century. They still have some nods to their industrial/thrash era as in "All Knowing Force", but even then those aren't as good as "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" and a few come across as just bad Ministry wannabe progressions. The bass playing is still quite pumping and fun, but when you haven't really got any good riffs to play under it also eventually dips into the inevitable mediocrity. The drumming is fine in that groovy hip hop style with some occasional industrial programming embellishments, but by far the biggest offender on the album are the vocals of Tommy Victor. Sure, they still sound like he always has, but he adds in these over the top gorilla grunts to his already gruff style and it ends up sounding too moronic to take seriously. On a track like "Embrace the Depth" he's back to himself and it doesn't sound so bad, he can surge into one of those catchier chorus parts, but there are other times here where I nearly had to shut off the album it was just so goofy sounding. A few of his howls even sound like an angrier, burlier Glen Danzig, so it seems like the other, bigger bands Victor had played with (or would play with) rubbed off here, and the lyrics are largely awful...

I can't completely decimate this album, because about 30-40% of it sounds like the band did in the decade prior, but apart from a few of those splashes of more warm, melodic chords, the bass lines and a few of the chorus vocals, this is just weak. The better songs like "Assurances" and "Out of This Realm" are wedged pretty deeply into the album, but they wouldn't be enough to save it even if they were the first two in the track list. Maybe it was all that time off, Tommy was just trying to rekindle the flames of what Prong was prior, but mix in a few flavors of the week, a process that clearly worked in the previous decade but just falls apart here. At its best, Scorpio Rising is just lazily copying previous material, but at its worst it's unintentionally hilarious. Not the sort of career nadir I'd want to run over with my car like Load or Virtual XI, but this album just seems so unnecessary in retrospect, since they've done a pretty decent job with most of their other output. Even the cover artwork on this one left something to be desired. Is that a skeleton with a beetle head wielding a scythe? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - 100% Live (2002)

When Prong re-emerged after a five year hiatus, the longest yet in the band's career, they did so with their first full-length live album. This wasn't the first time they'd given us the uncut experience, as they had a Peel Sessions EP and another rare live EP that I've never actually had my hands on; but 16 years into their existence seems like a respectable time to produce such a product and one would assume this would be handled professionally, especially since they had such a great run into and through the 90s. Well, 100% Live, cultivated from a couple gigs in the Midwest, certainly sounds decent enough in terms of its mix and even the song selection, but I don't know that it was necessarily arranged to have a lot of impact on the listener, to give him/her that same rush of seeing Tommy and company on a stage.

What I mean is that the track listing here, as presented to the fan, seems a bit too mellow up front, where you'd expect them to start off with some ragers and then get a little more dynamic as the sets progressed. "Rude Awakening" is an awesome song but it's a little too subdued to kick off a set from a band built on thrash, and then after that they launch into a chuggy tune called "Initiation" which was entirely new to us (they'd later change the name for Scorpio Rising), though it did build to a decent chorus that would have felt at home on the two studio albums before it, some nice bass lines from ex-Lizzy Borden player Brian Perry (who would not appear on any of the studio material). Proceeding into "Broken Peace", a track that doesn't quite work as well within the organic live environment as it did in the studio, there's a real sense that the band is kind of phoning it on or taking it a little too easy, not because they're cocking it all up but because of how they structured this. Even when they take on a more aggressive tune like "Another Worldly Device" it feels a little sluggish, the one real exception being "Disbelief" when they reach straight back to their roots and go hardcore wild, or "Cut-Rate" from Cleansing...in fact there's just a chunk of material near the end of the live album that seems more driven and ferocious than the rest and it stands out too much, including the finale, "Unconditional".

I think you can also notice small production differences in some of the material which is always the risk when you're not just pulling it from a single source, and even though the wilder closing tracks might seem less cleanly produced, they're so much more fun. Don't get me wrong, I like almost all the songs on this album in their studio incarnations, but the whole industrial/groove arsenal in their sound has never seemed to come across live as well as the classics which sound awesome. All told, 100% Live is certainly not a bad representation of their chops, but it just seems inconsistent in the context of a record that's you'd think was supposed to thrill the audience at their return. A better arrangement of the tracks would have done wonders for this one, as it stands I'll just be sticking to their studio works because there's not much reason to revisit this.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Rude Awakening (1996)

Rude Awakening was another of those heavily divisive albums of the 90s, by a band that was constantly reinvigorating itself by layering in more influences than the hardcore punk and thrash which fueled it so heavily in the decade before. After a somewhat successful LP with Cleansing, they decided to shift further into their electronic fetish, and the result was an album incorporating everything from industrial embellishments, hip hop beats, bouncy groove metal riffs that mirrored some of the burgeoning nu metal of the day, and even some moody alternative rock which would structure some of Victor's vocal stylings and how the band would assembled its verse and chorus structures. Like its predecessor, it somehow managed to make all of this work, to fuse it onto the urban rusted framework that has always supported the group's atmosphere and lyrical disposition, and evoke a timelessness that pervades the stylistic migration of their first five full-lengths.

I absolutely loved the production on this one; whereas Cleansing was a bit more level instrumentally, this one is heavily saturated, fatter and really grooves along hard. Paul Vincent Raven provided the bass guitars for the second time, and his tone is awesome, these rumbling bass-lines which always enhanced all of Tommy's drudging, basic chug-laden riffs, and his more interesting squeals, pinches, melodic chords and other trickery that created such a well-rounded, exploratory sound. The drums feel a lot more electronic this time around, basically a blend of Ted Parsons steady mechanistic style and some actual programming, but as someone who was also playing around in an industrial band in the mid to late 90s I really enjoyed how it all came out. Sure, some of these beats are mighty basic, but when you listen closely you can hear all of these little beeps and gleeps and percussion effects that keep them interesting even when a few of Tommy's duller chug riffs are playing over them. At times this album feels like some dudes picked up a basic drum machine, pressed the pre-sets for some trip hop beats and then just let their imaginations splash all over that, and while it might seem crude or 'boring' to some, it forced Victor and company into creating some catchy riffs and vocal lines to help entrance the listener.

The vocals are the same blunt street-ready philosophy we'd always gotten, perhaps flirting a little bit more with rap or poetry in a couple of the verses but not too distanced from where they were on the 1994 album. I have to say the first three tracks on this remain some of my favorites in their catalog, from the jerky, slamming "Controller" that sounded like an industrialized Chaos A.D. outtake, through the insanely groovy and subversive "Caprice" and its adorable electronic melodies, to the more mellow, catchy, pop-like title track. Sure, it had a fairly awful spur-of-the-moment rockstar video courtesy of Rob Zombie, which does not at all represent the song's message, the album, or the band, but I'll try not to hold that against it since I've been listening to this one for almost a quarter century now and never gotten tired of it. These cuts do overshadow a few of the other tunes, to be honest, but even the weaker, less interesting tunes have some addicting vocal lines or effects which take my fingers off the skip button, and there are some deep, hypnotic grooves in cuts like "Without Hope" and "Slicing"; or a slight spin back to robotic thrash metal with "Mansruin", a tune likely to please that 90s industrial metal audience weaned on "Stigmata", "Ultra" and "Jesus Built My Hotrod". No surprise really that Tommy would go on to play with Ministry himself for awhile as Raven did.

It would be easy to write off Rude Awakening for the variety of influences tainting the band's original thrash concept, or because of its unfortunately parallels to the bad metal trends of its day, but it comes together really well, simplistic but engaging and memorable, almost like a automated factory version of Helmet, who were also trending hard at the time (and rightly so). Another of my favorite Prong albums, even long after its novelty had worn off, and I'm always happy to break it down off the shelf and go exploring through it again. Sadly, this would be the last album before the band would go on a sizable hiatus, before returning with something less creative and/or interesting, but in the interim Victor got to play with Ministry, and even Danzig, where he remains today in a more lucrative role.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (there is no kindness to waste)

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Cleansing (1994)

I don't think you could listen through albums like Beg to Differ and Prove You Wrong and NOT think Tommy Victor had a fascination with industrial or electronic music. While those were organic thrash manifestations for the most part, there was clearly an undercurrent of clinical, machine-like riffing, beats and production which made an album like Cleansing almost inevitable. But it's not until this 1994 effort that Prong embarked on a more even split between its thrashing roots and the electronic experimentation; I'm of course excluding the remix EP from a couple years prior which was an abomination. What I'm most impressed with, is that rather than merely aping the flavors of the day, such as Ministry, who were enjoying massive success due to Psalm 69 and steady touring, they made something of their own out of this stylistic crossbreeding. Not to say that there aren't a couple riffs here, as in "Whose Fist is This Anyway?", which Alain Jourgensen might have penned himself, but this one manages to stand out and even outlive a lot of other US industrial rock bands why fell by the wayside somewhere around the late 90s when emo and nu-metal started to bifurcate their projected audiences.

What really surprises me is just how laid back this record is. Similar to Beg to Differ it's exceedingly simple and subliminal in how it's constructed. While there are programmed beats occasionally, they were still leaning on Ted Parsons for the actual drumming, and he sets up a well-produced set of grooves here that give all the guitars, samples, and pluggy little bass-lines room to work upon the listener's expectations. The rhythm guitars are extremely minimal patterns, but even where they feel familiar there is something refreshing about how they serve the overall aesthetic of the album. The tone is punchy and processed, but works equally well whether Victor is cycling through some of his basic palm mutings or the more expressive, dissonant, often warm open chords that are used to detail out some of the verses and choruses. Tracks like "Another Worldly Device" and "Cut-Rate" are still heavily rooted in the thrash we'd come to expect, but the band really stretches itself out with things like the funky guitar line in "Broken Peace" or "Not of This Earth", which twists a riff similar to "Hell If I Could" from Prove You Wrong into something that almost sounds like a darker Jane's Addiction. Another interesting piece was "Home Rule" which reminded me a lot of Voivod with its jarring, wonderful chord progressions and the swerving bass grooves.

Of course, this is all brought into the Prong stable by Tommy Victor's blunt voice, which connects this all to their greater body of work, and fits in really well with the mechanistic blueprints whether he's going straight at the mic or putting a little industrial filtering on their. What further thrusts this into that genre is the liberal use of sampling that sits just behind the main instruments and vocals, almost as if its afraid to truly intrude, but loud enough to matter when categorizing Cleansing. There are political/authoritarian rants, crowd chants, and machine noises in there, all adding to the sonic palette without detracting or distracting. I can't actually pick out a weak track in the bunch...perhaps there are a couple overly repetitive passages on the album, or a few groove metal licks that are a little too generic in retrospect, but this one manages to fill out nearly an entire hour and maintain its consistency and immersion, all the way to the catchy but mellowed thrashing throughout "Test". I've mentioned that the album felt 'laid back' to me, but I don't want that to imply that it lacks energy; it's aggression is simply focused on the robotic nature of its rhythms, the tautness of the lower end guitars that is counterbalanced by the delicious processed open chords which appear later.

Even within this small microcosm of Prong's sound there is a good dynamic balance which leaves me with a fulfilling impression for one of my favorite albums in their whole 30+ year history. This was also the hottest I think the band had ever been thanks largely to the MTV video rotation for "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck", which was also lampooned on Beavis & Butt-head. And deservedly so...this was a still a band hungry to explore what it could achieve, never balking at stretching its parameters and as a result we've got about a decade of quality albums which build upon their predecessors in interesting ways. For me, the streak didn't end here.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (all the spaces between bleed)

https://prongmusic.com/

Prong - Whose Fist is This Anyway? EP (1992)

This EP always struck me as a rather strange, unfortunate sort of experiment, the main reasons being that 1) the track "Whose Fist is This Anyway?" isn't even present, though it would appear a couple years later on the Cleansing album. I suppose they could have just thought it was a clever title and then one that deserved to be used for more than just a largely throwaway label-filler release like this one, but in retrospect anyone encountering that album first would probably be confused when they were tracking this down from the limited catalog Prong had available at the time. 2) I just don't think industrial/dance remixes of tracks off Prove You Wrong was bound to work out all that well, and this sort of thing could have waited, again for Cleansing, of which the material feels a lot more adjacent to being techno-fied, industrialized and otherwise fucked with.

What's more, this is just bad...this is possibly the worst release in the entire Prong discography. The electro mixes are almost all awful, with few changes other than clanging and banging and annoyance that people would have only thought made for good industrial music in the early 90s. Okay, to be fair, sometimes they did, but the strength of Prong is the riffs, vocals and energy and it just doesn't benefit a track like "Prove You Wrong" or "Hell If I Could" to be fragmented off and repurposed like this. The latter is particularly bad, a series of boring beats and bass-lines that suddenly morphs into the proper guitar riffs and some heavily filtered vocals. Granted, that vocal effect might have been cool in the original tune, but here it just feels like a bunch of buttons are being pressed, and that's one of the critical flaws...'What would this part sound like if we added this effect?' is fun for dicking around in the studio with your buds, but later turning it into a commercial release in some wishful attempt to align with the KDMFMs and Ministry's of the world just isn't effective here. And ALL the alternate mixes of their original songs here are laughable at best, like the miserable 'Safety Mix' of "Irrelevant Thoughts", a song I happened to like a lot. And there are TWO mixes of "Prove You Wrong" which both suck...

Interestingly, they also remix their Stranglers' cover "Get a Grip (On Yourself)" so now it sounds like total nonsense, and then they add a cover of The Music Machine's "Talk Talk", which might be the best tune on here only by the process of elimination, but is otherwise mediocre enough that I'm happy they didn't soil Prove You Wrong by including it. They turn the song into a bouncing bore that doesn't do much justice to the original and certainly isn't interesting in context to the great material I enjoyed from Prong throughout the 90s. So basically this entire release is useless musically, a waste of 26 minutes. The cover image is kind of interesting, I like how they split the 'prong' icon into the three circles, but that's the most memorable thing about it. I enjoy the first five Prong albums a lot but this was a very unfortunate misstep which at one point had me dreading what might come after Prove You Wrong. Luckily, that turned out a LOT fucking better than I thought.

Verdict: Fail [2.25/10]

https://prongmusic.com/