[holden]

First impression (just finishing spinning it in entirety now):
um, relentless hardcore. My ears need a break.

There are hooks aplenty, but it's just all sort of samey. Every track (save the last one, this silly horn-laden "Stand Up", which sounds like it was stolen from Fatboy Slim) ia a barrage of head-drilling beats and growling guitars. Add too too many synth squelches, sirens and rave piano/key throwbacks and its the Prodigy stuck in 3rd gear...fast enough to get you moving (for a while), but not fast enough to be interesting for very long.

Don't get me wrong - i'm a big fan of "Jilted" and "Fat of The Land", because these each had a lot of variety and the harder rock tracks were interspersed with techno (not such a fan of the kinder-rave of Experience, it always gave me a sugar-high-like headache). And i guess back in '97, i liked their menace - seemed dangerous and the sounds new when blasting out "Breathe" or "Mindfields" on the college jukebox. Even "Always Outnumbered..." had some melodic moments and some variety of guest singers...the samey thing about that one was the overdriven basslines that always sound like fart noises to me. Otherwise, it was actually pretty different sounding than FoTL, perhaps a conscious effort by Liam after the crap of "Baby's Got a Temper" as "firestarter pt. 2"

But this record? It's just Prodigy to the lowest common denominator. Like "We're the mighty Prodigy, remember? we're badass, hear Flint scream nonsense!" A track or two at a time is fun enough if you're in the mood for audio overload. But 46 minutes straight didn't really inspire. That's a shame, because it's been getting good reviews and i was hoping for more. Oops.