Prong - Cleansing (1994)^{Release ID: 2056}

The gritty and gnarly style of groove metal that Prong play on album opener, Another Worldy Device is like an oddly melodic punk track in some ways.  The clinical riffing plays on through most Prong tracks I have heard and makes me think of Helmet a lot of the time, except Prong possess a more potent infectious essence than Helmet, with the added exception being that Tommy Victor and co are also much more experimental.  Cleansing is the album where the electronic experimentation meets the more familiar riff patterns.  Whatever element is present however, the overall sense of Prong simply writing some of the least complex yet still delicious tasting industrial groove metal is impossible to shake off the old tastebuds.

Even the absolute overkill of attention that Snap Your Fingers… gets seemed justified when you don’t visit that one track over and over again.  It is a track that rings true to the “less is more” mantra.  That having been said it is One Outnumbered that stands out as my favourite track on Cleansing.  The abrasive nature of the industrial elements are tempered well by clever pacing that whilst clearly creating something of a void in terms of power at times, somehow do not dilute the venom behind the messaging.  Prong are the proverbial grinning assassins here on album number four.  A seemingly clean production job actually exacerbates the muckier tones of the music, that industrial grime somehow smeared across the album as opposed to being wiped away.

It does not always work however.  Out of This Misery lacks punch and suffers from a loss of regimenting in the songwriting that epitomises the earlier tracks on the record.  In fact, it soon became clear just how front-loaded Cleansing is.  As we drop into a more Machine Head style groove in the second half of the record, tracks soon start to sound whimsical in nature and lacking in form.  I am not sure what the intent was behind Not of This Earth but it is far and away the most throw away of the tracks available here.  The balls are still around in places but the earthier elements all but disappear all too soon on Cleansing, ruining that early promise in favour of unnecessary experimentation.