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Invaders Must Die

by

The Prodigy

 
Invaders Must Die
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Flint, Howlett and Maxim update their software but keep their killer sound

  • We Say...

    Review by Barry Walters

    It's an unavoidable fact: Every commercially successful music act eventually becomes a parody of itself — particularly when it's over the top from the get-go. This is certainly true of the Prodigy, the English rave act with a much-imitated breakbeat groove that soon became inescapable via PlayStation shoot-'em-ups, bad action films and energy drink ads. Taking seven years to release a lackluster successor to its 1997 blockbuster The Fat of the Land didn't help; a perfunctory singles comp compounded problems.

    On the surface, the Prodigy's fifth album in 17 years might seem like more of the same. The software that created it may have changed, but stylistically there's little here that deviates from the group's earliest attack. Euphoric mid-album peak "Warrior's Dance" even samples Bridget Grace's "Take Me Away," a late-'80s house cut recycled in countless early ‘90s rave anthems. But Invaders Must Die doesn't try to reverse the band's downhill slump via arena-punk pomposity or forced Juliette Lewis cameos. Instead, it's an unpretentious dance disc, proudly and successfully flaunting instant familiarity. The oh-my-god-this-is-so-retro dismissal it initially provokes soon gives way to an oh-my-god-this-is-so-awesome welcome.

    Vocalist Keith Flint and MC Maxim smartly sit out most tracks while leader Liam Howlett gets back to what he does best — vacuum cleaner riffs, sledgehammer beats and chopped-up rants. This unapologetically jittery and unrelentingly speedy set simulates stimulants the way reggae evokes herb. It throws a fit on the opening title track, bounces off the walls for several more, then collapses with the slobbering kiss-off, "Stand Up." After such a tremendous expenditure of energy, you'll be lucky to do just that.

  • They Say...

    Review by John Bush, All Music Guide

    Twenty years after England's Summer of Love, rave had made a comeback -- at least in indie circles -- and Liam Howlett's Prodigy, the only original rave group still going (anyone remember Altern-8?), could hardly have done worse than jump aboard. Invaders Must Die is a curious nu-rave record, as though the sound of 1991 (such as their Top Ten hit "Charly") has been filtered through the sound of 1996 (such as their number one, "Firestarter") to emerge as, simply, uptempo dance music with extroverted beats and grimy basslines. If that sounds basically like your average electronica record circa the turn of the millennium (albeit produced by one of its greatest heroes), then you're a long way towards understanding what this nu-rave record from the Prodigy sounds like. Add a few period-appropriate cues -- unfiltered synth or keyboard runs, ring-the-alarm effects, samples of divas or ragga chatters (sped-up and slowed-down, respectively) -- and you get a strange album indeed. The single "Omen" is a good example, while the other two tracks with the most rave signals are "Take Me to the Hospital" and "Warrior's Dance," which both sound like follow-ups to "Charly" or "Out of Space" filtered through the darkside strains of latter-day hardcore techno (aka 4Hero's "Mr. Kirk's Nightmare"). And as usual with the Prodigy -- going back to Music for the Jilted Generation -- there's plenty of polemics and struggle, most of it delivered in sloganeering fashion by Keith Flint and Maxim (who are both back in the fold after being absent from the previous Prodigy record, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned).

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