Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy

It’s tragic a little over a decade on from ‘Fat of The Land’ the Prodigy do find themselves under attack from music press and on the back foot desperately trying to prove they’re still as relevant and 'cutting edge' as they were at the turn of millennium. After the ill-conceived single ‘Babys Got A Temper’ and criminally underrated follow up album ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ it seems main man Liam Howlett has been fiddling with the formula once again and decided to look inwards for this their fifth full length. But if ‘Invaders Must Die’ is the sum of the Prodigy’s parts it manages to fall despairingly short of the magnificence of many of their previous efforts.

Lead in singles ‘Invaders Must Die’ and effortlessly catchy ‘Omen’, both blow electro-rock pretenders Pendulum well and truly out of the water for their crossover sublimity. However ‘Thunder’ is the breathtaking moment in the album, a masterpiece of early, big beat techno. Howlett touches old territory, once again proving he can still sample a mean line or two as ‘I hear thunder but there’s no rain’ rattles through the speakers.

‘Warriors Dance’ with its graceful female vocal sample could prove to be a dancefloor killer akin to ‘No Good’, and this alongside ‘Take Me To The Hospital’ make a refreshing change of direction for IMD that hankers back to the techno grooves of early nineties ‘Jilted Generation’ Prodigy.

Yet it’s the second half of ‘Invaders Must Die’ that falls flat, ‘Piranha’ and ‘Run With The Wolves’ sound like poorly worked out b-sides, uninspired and lyrically sterile. ‘World’s on Fire’ despairingly spiritless and colourless five minutes couldn’t set flame to tinder wood. Up against the real dangerous vitality that ran through mid-nineties hits like ‘Breathe’ and 'Firestarter' it all sounds like the Prodigy are treading-water.

Overall this might be enough to stop the rot for now but under ‘Invaders Must Die’ and all its rhetoric and bravado is a flawed 45 minutes of music that promises more than it could ever manage to deliver.
7/10

Tellison @ The iBar

Basement gigs don’t come much more intimate than this; descend into the depths and you emerge into a small neat box of a room, bar to the back and the front a stage, barely raised from ground level, on which a rather trippy screen background hangs, whirling with multi-coloured patterns and visual delights.

The pure tension and anticipation in the crowd has been turned up to eleven when Tellison stroll on stage. They seem a geeky misfit of a band, with a nervous and hesitated raise of the hand lead singer Stephen Davidson welcomes everyone, ‘Hello’ before diving head first into energetic opener ‘Hanover Start Clapping’. They swing straight into ‘Henry Went to Paris’, another upbeat rocker that rouses the front of the audience into the first sing-along of the evening. Audience and band, both in a good spirits, share banter together between songs.

Single ‘Gallery’ is another crowd clapping favourite, but it proves to be later in the set that Tellison get a chance to show just why they’re the name on everyone’s lips, when they slow it all down for ‘Architects’. It strips back their percussion led, electro pop rock to a simple, slow heartfelt ballad that crescendos into a whirring emotional climax.

‘New York, New York’ follows and with all its pop rock charm is the most well received of the evening. Leaving with an old classic to close the show, Reader’s punk-rock guitar riff keeps everybody in the place moving and makes sure Tellison leave the iBar craving more.