Prodigy - Invaders Must Die: Keeps This Crowd Happy

How does one faithfully recreate the lustier elements of an all-action-no-plot masterpiece, without eschewing the need for originality? Simply to replicate the original is one, rather unimaginative option; but to wander off in directions anew is an approach fraught with risk, which could undo all the good work of the original.

(Pose not this problem to the producers of Terminator 3, for they will throw money at the idea, rearrange the deckchairs and ultimately leave punters shaking their fists and seething with outrage. I shudder to recall, but Terminator 3 was neither an improved re-working of its predecessor, nor a work of sufficient originality to win plaudits for all sorts of new reasons - as Terminator 2 had itself been, ironically.)

However, if anyone knows how to re-imagine themselves with more verve and bravura than previously, it is The Prodigy. Following the success of their debut album Experience, they wandered off in a completely different direction with their follow-up, Jilted Generation, yet still produced an improvement. This was itself then trumped by another re-invention, in The Fat of the Land.

Unfortunately, this was the zenith. Their fourth album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, was fairly forgettable, and the greatest hits compilation of a couple of years ago seemed the sensible, if rather shameless escape route.

The news of another studio album was therefore greeted with a raised, and rather dubious eyebrow, here at All Action No Plot Towers – for what new route could they tread? Surely Outnumbered, Outgunned was sufficient illustration that there were no more worlds for The Prodigy to conquer?

Well – yes, it was. So the band (or, more specifically, Liam Howlett, The Prodigy’s prodigy) have basically rehashed Fat of the Land, and called it Invaders Must Die. Nothing particularly original in terms of genre and sound, but it produces enough in the vein of Fat of the Land to keep this particular crowd quite happy, thank you very much.

The guitars’n’drums’n’bass’n’guttural lyrics combo does not deviate too much from the winning formula of Fat of the Land, but more than ten years since the success of that album, another hour worth of similar stuff is quite welcome. It’s up-tempo and aggressive, very much cut from the all-action-no-plot cloth. Interestingly, the spikiest tracks are those which do not rely upon samplings, and which are therefore are all the band’s own work – namely Invaders Must Die, Omen and Colours.

The album just about, by the skin of its teeth, avoids over-use of Keith Flint’s vocal – ahem – talents. Flint was perfectly used in Firestarter, back in the day, and the more understated contribution on Breathe was well-judged. A similarly limited input in Omen works jolly well on this album. However, his delivery of lyrics which, frankly, sound laughably like a nursery rhyme, in Piranha and Take Me To The Hospital, would be rather problematic, if the music were not so adrenaline-pumpingly manic.

The sound occasionally varies, but never for long. Warrior’s Dance almost harks back to the rave-happy nature of their first album, while closing track Stand Up is as close as they will ever get to a big orchestral finale, but for the most part the band sticks to a tried-and-trusted formula.

It’s neither particularly original nor clever, but if you reconcile yourself to an absence of originality, and accept this as an extension of Fat of the Land, it ticks the boxes.