Tommy Victor (Danzig/Ministry) is at it again with his industrial/thrash outfit known as Prong. The newest release from the 3-piece is entitled Ruining Lives (Steamhammer/SPV), but I wouldn’t say my life is ruined since listening to this album. I have never had the opportunity to listen to Prong up until this point, but I was pleasantly surprised at all of the elements that Prong attack their listeners with. Industrial guitar tones, punk/thrash drum beats, the occasional break down, and the uniqueness behind Tommy’s voice were all present on this album and jive really well together.
For my first time listening to Prong I would say overall it was a positive experience and I will be digging for more as soon as I can. Having said that, I felt like the first four tracks were missing something that make them memorable to me. Maybe it was because the songs were not as aggressive as I had hoped. Perhaps the breakdowns seemed a little too forced and just put in to kill time. My philosophy, however, is to keep moving forward with the album and stay engaged with it. This time, I would say it worked out. From the album title track on through to the closing seconds of ‘Limitations and Validations’ I was head banging more and really digging the grooves that were being presented. The breakdowns, when they did occur, felt right. The aggression factor certainly increased exponentially as well where the guitars seemed to come alive and take a stranglehold on each track. Most importantly, these tracks became memorable, which is arguably the most important characteristic a song can have in this day in age where you can purchase single songs off of applications such as iTunes. Personally, I will buy and listen to a full album and listen to it front to back as intended so I can get the full feeling from the artists who wrote and recorded it. In other words, I buy a whole painting with a frame, not just a chunk of the painting that has some happy trees in it and ignore the beautiful mountains in the background. So to shift gears back to Prong, I would say my favorites off of this album were ‘Ruining Lives’, ‘Absence of Light’ , ‘Self Will Run Riot’, and ‘Limitations and Validations.’
The best part of finally getting to listen to Prong, was to listen to all the little bits and pieces that reminded me of other bands/artists who cite Tommy as an influence. Burton C. Bell from Fear Factory, Jonathan Davis from Korn, and even Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails all seem to utilize small pieces of Tommy’s work and it is even clearly seen off of Ruining Lives today. It is safe to say that Prong is not only a very important piece of the extreme musical world of today, but Tommy and company can still hang with the best as they have proved here on their latest.
6.5/10
TIM LEDIN