Written by: Alex Green

Five years after Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, The Prodigy are back.

A lot can happen to a band in five years, but for this British outfit, a musical potbelly is apparently not one of them.

Lean, muscular and packing one of the biggest right hooks in Electronica, Invaders Must Die finds The Prodigy brimming with the kind of feral confidence that helped them land several number one albums in the nineties. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost twenty years and twenty million albums sold since core members Liam Howlett, Keith Flint and Maxim first revolutionized Big Beat, but Invaders Must Die demonstrates The Prodigy are not a group who plan on slouching into their dotage. The title track is all lethal techno stalk and prowling bass lines, while “Take Me To The Hospital” pants and breaks with heaving authority; elsewhere, “Warrior’s Dance” swirls with wicked, libidinous purpose and Dave Grohl turns up behind the drum kit for “Run With The Wolves” which sounds like The Hold Steady by way of Pop Will Eat Itself.

Meanwhile, “World’s On Fire” throbs deliciously away and the twisted beats of “Piranha” are searing and infectious, but the chanting refrain of the latter that warns of the piranha’s “vice-like power to rip you apart” also serves as an apt description of The Prodigy’s brutal and brilliant capabilities.