Review Summary: Well, we all have to start somewhere
It’s always great fun travelling back in time with one of your favorite artists/groups and discovering where exactly they came from, how they came to be, and listening to the foundations being laid with early demo’s and EP’s. Debut offerings always generally provide intriguing listens, as in just about every case what’s presented ends up being an entirely different sound than what would come to be in later years. Some demo releases come fully outfitted with huge amounts of potential that automatically make you realize how and why said artist came to be signed, others however make you wonder just how said artist was able to proceed forward into the music world. The Prodigy’s debut EP ‘What Evil Lurks’ falls somewhere in the middle; while ideas presented here would be greatly expanded on with it’s big brother release
Experience, it also comes across as a very underwhelming listen, it lacks charm and replay value. It’s sparse, short and straight to the point, catchy in small doses, and yet has almost nothing going for it. Obviously first offerings are generally not going to stack up as well as albums put out after more experience, but here we see Liam just following the tried and tested rave formula; there’s no hints of greatness to be found here, no commanding sound that demands attention. Here are 4 simple tracks that arrive and leave with minimal fanfare, and yet it was enough. Because these 4 simple tracks paved the way for something far, far greater.
The title track kicks things off here with its ‘
what evil lurks in the hearts of men’ sampling and shrill and piercing repetitive 303 lines. A simple bassline is thrown over an equally uninspiring 808 fill, and then the remainder of the track plays out with Liam filling the barren environment with basic synth lines that just remain forgettable. ‘We Gonna Rock’ follows next, with its Atari video game soundtrack vibe. A slightly more memorable track, there’s a few more things on offer to peak the listener’s ears. A bass fill (later re-worked into the Fairground version of ‘Everybody In The Place’) pulses out as stock standard rave vocal sampling loop their way around the landscape. The synth lines are a little more pleasing here, and the song seems to move along at a much more comfortable pace. Side 2 (this is a vinyl release here folks) gives us ‘Android’ and the original cut off ‘Everybody In The Place’. The former is the big star of this whole project, with its breakbeat leanings and funk riddled addictiveness it surprises me that this track wasn’t given more attention. With a little studio padding and some extra ear candy added into the mix it could’ve easily stood head and shoulders with any of the cuts from
Experience. As already mentioned, the latter track is not the version that made its way onto the debut LP and radios around the world, and it’s rather easy to see why it was re worked. It’s not truly terrible by any means, but it’s sluggish pace and execution bring to mind images of deserted dance floors; it’s there and ready to go but just doesn’t seem to be working. And before you can say ‘
Everybody is in the place, let’s go’ it’s over and we’re done. The bags are packed and we’re out the door before the power light on the stereo has faded to black.
If this was my first taste of The Prodigy I could enjoy this more; hell, if I was an e riddled hop head back in the early rave scene this would undoubtedly be in high rotation. But (sadly) I’m not, and this isn’t my first swim in the murky waters of Howlett and co. What this EP shows (amongst all it’s trivialities and lackluster appeal) is potential; it is there in small doses and to be fair these 4 tracks do work on some level. But to think that less than a year later
Experience would be let loose on the rave scene is mind boggling; to go from this small almost irrelevant release to one of the biggest rave albums ever is a huge gap, a monumental distance travelled in such a small time. If you’re a long term fan, check it out. But bear in mind; while
Experience had stacks and stacks of different ideas and sounds piled on top of each other this relies more on one concept running the whole song. There’s no shift in tone, no giant drops or rises in the tracks, it’s all just pure and simple unadulterated ear candy for the rave freaks. Oh well, we all gotta start somewhere right?
