Unlike follow-up releases, the original 12-track LP was the brainchild of Liam Howlett alone. Built atop the anxious jitter of breakbeat hardcore, there’s an overstated aggression that fuels one’s exploration through the record. Akin to grunge in the U.S., breakbeat hardcore was the genre that offered escape to unsatisfied youth. Except, instead of chasing the dragon, the Prodigy base was rife with those dancing the week away thanks to a heavy dose of speed and/or MDMA. In contrast to the bleakness of American grunge, there is a glimmer of beauty hidden beneath Howlett’s visceral chaos. After the aggression of “Music Reach,” which challenges some unknown protagonist to “make me want to shout,” Howlett commences the follow-up, the dance-hall infused “Wind It Up,” with a fragile piano lead. “Weather Experience,” the longest track at over eight minutes, is the album’s black sheep; an innocuous instrumental-tuned acid-rave anthem that deserves a home in a forthcoming David Fincher flick.
Completed years prior to the software that is enabling today’s cut-and-paste production sessions, sample oddities and other analog quirkiness are incentives for continued spins. From reworking lyrics from Jamaican reggae outfit the Revolutionaries to finding room for hooks from Kate Bush and James Brown, and manipulating what sounds like meows into “Charly,” Howlett utilized a palette unlike any of his contemporaries.
