Rude Awakening

Rude Awakening was another of those heavily divisive albums of the 90s, by a band that was constantly reinvigorating itself by layering in more influences than the hardcore punk and thrash which fueled it so heavily in the decade before. After a somewhat successful LP with Cleansing, they decided to shift further into their electronic fetish, and the result was an album incorporating everything from industrial embellishments, hip hop beats, bouncy groove metal riffs that mirrored some of the burgeoning nu metal of the day, and even some moody alternative rock which would structure some of Victor's vocal stylings and how the band would assembled its verse and chorus structures. Like its predecessor, it somehow managed to make all of this work, to fuse it onto the urban rusted framework that has always supported the group's atmosphere and lyrical disposition, and evoke a timelessness that pervades the stylistic migration of their first five full-lengths.

I absolutely loved the production on this one; whereas Cleansing was a bit more level instrumentally, this one is heavily saturated, fatter and really grooves along hard. Paul Vincent Raven provided the bass guitars for the second time, and his tone is awesome, these rumbling bass-lines which always enhanced all of Tommy's drudging, basic chug-laden riffs, and his more interesting squeals, pinches, melodic chords and other trickery that created such a well-rounded, exploratory sound. The drums feel a lot more electronic this time around, basically a blend of Ted Parsons steady mechanistic style and some actual programming, but as someone who was also playing around in an industrial band in the mid to late 90s I really enjoyed how it all came out. Sure, some of these beats are mighty basic, but when you listen closely you can hear all of these little beeps and gleeps and percussion effects that keep them interesting even when a few of Tommy's duller chug riffs are playing over them. At times this album feels like some dudes picked up a basic drum machine, pressed the pre-sets for some trip hop beats and then just let their imaginations splash all over that, and while it might seem crude or 'boring' to some, it forced Victor and company into creating some catchy riffs and vocal lines to help entrance the listener.

The vocals are the same blunt street-ready philosophy we'd always gotten, perhaps flirting a little bit more with rap or poetry in a couple of the verses but not too distanced from where they were on the 1994 album. I have to say the first three tracks on this remain some of my favorites in their catalog, from the jerky, slamming "Controller" that sounded like an industrialized Chaos A.D. outtake, through the insanely groovy and subversive "Caprice" and its adorable electronic melodies, to the more mellow, catchy, pop-like title track. Sure, it had a fairly awful spur-of-the-moment rockstar video courtesy of Rob Zombie, which does not at all represent the song's message, the album, or the band, but I'll try not to hold that against it since I've been listening to this one for almost a quarter century now and never gotten tired of it. These cuts do overshadow a few of the other tunes, to be honest, but even the weaker, less interesting tunes have some addicting vocal lines or effects which take my fingers off the skip button, and there are some deep, hypnotic grooves in cuts like "Without Hope" and "Slicing"; or a slight spin back to robotic thrash metal with "Mansruin", a tune likely to please that 90s industrial metal audience weaned on "Stigmata", "Ultra" and "Jesus Built My Hotrod". No surprise really that Tommy would go on to play with Ministry himself for awhile as Raven did.

It would be easy to write off Rude Awakening for the variety of influences tainting the band's original thrash concept, or because of its unfortunately parallels to the bad metal trends of its day, but it comes together really well, simplistic but engaging and memorable, almost like a automated factory version of Helmet, who were also trending hard at the time (and rightly so). Another of my favorite Prong albums, even long after its novelty had worn off, and I'm always happy to break it down off the shelf and go exploring through it again. Sadly, this would be the last album before the band would go on a sizable hiatus, before returning with something less creative and/or interesting, but in the interim Victor got to play with Ministry, and even Danzig, where he remains today in a more lucrative role.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Hard, hard, hard… in fact, I doubt if Prong had actually scheduled any more work time in the studio after the exquisite “Cleansing”. After such a climactic affair a band is bound to take a well-deserved break, but I guess Tommy Victor and Co. were sensing the coming of the future tides, and that the time wouldn’t always be right for their modern metal frivolities.

In other words, they had to make haste if they wanted to leave a more memorable trace in the fans’ minds, and pull themselves together for at least one more effort during this very propitious and profitable for them decade. Sure thing; how about “Cleansing II” as a possible sequel? No, no… seriously, have you ever heard/seen Prong repeating themselves? Are you nuts!?

Not an option, and here we have the album here, a curious oddity in the band’s discography, one that many Prong lovers can’t seem to come to terms with. Well, to begin with, Prong have always been a visionary, experimental outfit their valiant vistas dating back from their early hardcore/thrash days even, the groovy/industrial 90’s only too nicely accommodating their not very classic-friendly ideas. Their effective thrash-boosted, moderately abrasive “Killing Joke meets Helmet” blend worked great on a string of albums but the modification process, invariably applied to various degrees throughout, has never been as prominent as here.

To put it long, the band have voted to remove the thrash from the equation completely by notching up both the industrial and the groove. As a result, the carefree optimistic atmosphere of “Cleansing” can be seldom felt the claustrophobic, nearly suffocating miasma stirred on “Controller” serving as an early warning to the listener that this will be a different “animal”, one that will stretch his/her nerves with slow-burning mechanized soundscapes (the psychotic noiser “Caprice” the ultimate example) some of which will sit just as fine on a Godflesh or a Pitchshifter album. However, instead of an anti-music industrial showdown the band prefer to preserve the influences of the other two mentioned acts, and this is exactly what the slightly more optimistic title-track delivers, psychedelic rockish goodness that could sit very well on Killing Joke’s “Pandemonium”, for instance; a catchy infectious material which gets translated in a stiffer, more sterile way on a string of cuts those recalling the more rigid, less flexible approach on “Prove You Wrong”, Victor’s distorted synthesized vocals indelibly helping the dispassionate machinistic cause. The more vivid jumpiness of “Mansruin” may be considered the actual rude awakening, a boisterous proto-thrashy number which doesn’t quite instigate a headbanging rebellion afterwards, but spearheads an intriguing change of mood with the memorable atmospheric roller-coaster “Innocence Gone” and the jarring erratic groover “Dark Signs”.

Yeah, not much left from the exuberant all-out moshing spirit of the preceding epic, no raised fists, worldly devices and snapped fingers here; this is both a calmer and a noisier offering in a very curious intermingling way which again comes the closest to “Prove You Wrong” from the band’s older works, having a very similar dirgy listless, even plain soulless if you like, veneer that doesn’t wear thin but lures the listener with its hypnotic, not very frequently-changing soundscapes. I’ve heard some people trying to compare this transformation to the one experienced by Ministry on “Filth Pig” released the same year, but I don’t think these two recordings served the same purpose; for the Al Jurgensen gang the “Pig” was just a way to vent out their passion for early Sabbath by giving those primordial doomy sounds a boosted vociferous industrial edge, an isolated decision that wasn’t surprising having in mind Jurgensen’s chronic unpredictability; in the Prong case this effort is a near-natural evolution towards a more abstract, less metal-prone delivery, not exactly a totally unexpected turn of events for those who were sagacious enough to see which direction all this industrial/groovy parade was heading with one of its founders and champions leading the way.

This album also closed the first chapter from the guys’ career in a somewhat minimalistic, but still dignified manner the band eventually reaching this not really mythical Abstracto-Industrial Land without spacing out to the point of losing it like their brothers-in-arms Ministry again with “Dark Side of the Spoon”, and Skrew with “Angel Seed”. Mission accomplished supposedly, and a new chapter open with “Scorpio Rising” seven years later. A very inauspicious beginning, though, this scorpion, a sloppy stripped-down hardcore charade that went way beyond the band’s roots even. Fortunately, Victor and his constantly-rotating comrades found the right way to mosh again later even if that came at the cost of wholesome repetitions (“Power of the Damager” frequently mirroring ”Cleansing”) of motifs and nuances from past exploits, and more or less relevant all-cover compilations (“Songs from the Black Hole”). The truth is that the kings of New York are still a relevant force on the contemporary scene some thirty years after their inception, and their days don’t seem to be numbered… neither hibernations nor gentle or rude awakenings scheduled yet.

This is complete fucking nonsense. Prong started out as an above average thrash band. Then they got some groove influence, but they still made quality music. The industrial influence on Cleansing was also bearable... but this isn't. This is pure shit. The only slight resemblance of Prong's former glory is show on the track Mansruin. That’s pretty much the only thrashy riff throughout the whole album. BTW, that’s the only riff for Mansruin.

Yea they're talent sure has dumbed down. I mean c'mon... Mansruin is just one riff for 3:27! There is no more groove either. All the tracks are just maybe 1 or 2 simple riffs combined with random noise to produce complete and utter shit. In all of this nonsense there are a few good tracks.

Controller is one of these good tracks. Awesome guitar squeals and slides and nice drum work. If only the other songs on this album sounded more like this one. Rude Awakening is by far the best song on this album... but that's not saying much. Sure it has a complete mainstream feel but it’s a sad and gloomy song that pulls you right in. Dark Signs is that last good song on this piece of shit album. Generic drumbeat throughout and crappy guitar riffs but still better than the rest of the slop on this album. The bonus track Proud Division is decent as well.

The rest sounds exactly the same. You can’t tell anything apart. Its one boring mainstream song after the next. Tommy Victor's have effects now on all of the songs. Bass is heard pretty clearly but it’s nothing amazing. The guitar work, of course, is pure shit as well as the drums.

Don’t even bother with this. I enjoy Prong... to a certain extent. Just keep this in your mind... everything post-1994 for Prong is crap. They will never be the same as they were...

Prong, now not a lot of people have actually heard of them but they have been fairly revolutionary...doing some of the things a lot of the more popular metal bands have done but a few years before it really becomes "cool".

Prong's Rude Awakening is a decent example of mixing a fair amount of funkish type groove drumming, Pantera styled groove riffs, some odd guitar noises as well as some techno influences. Overall it's a good album but I think some of the greatness of this album has been lost with time as many bands have since gone this root thus hurting the album's originality although the other bands have never done it as well.

I would say that the first three songs "The Controller", "Caprice", and "Rude Awakening" have a bit more of a melodic edge than the rest of the album and don't base themselves almost exclusively on heavy grooves...thus making this a great start to the album as it creates a bit of variation, although not enough to make it a truly great disc. The rest of the album though prides itself almost exclusively on heavy groove riffs (although there are some hints of melody from the first three songs scattered through a couple songs).

There two things that hurt this disc: 1. The aforementioned problem of many bands having this sound...especially nowadays which really doesn't make this album stand out today and 2. Not enough variety or atleast not enough defining pieces in each song. After enough listens the album will start to run together a bit although it doesn't suffer too much from this like say most AC/DC albums but it is a noticeable problem.

I would certainly say that if you like bands like Pantera and White Zombie/Rob Zombie you will atleast like this disc, otherwise don't bother.

I actually got this album when it came out and totally dug the fuck out of it for a while, but after several listens it got kinda boring. It's hard to describe the sound really, but it's kinda melodic and has lots of random industrialish noises. It's not thrash, not even speed metal, just kinda straight-up heavy metal that has a lot of Pantera-styled groove riffing, and at times almost a post-80s-glam vibe to it in the general song construction area. Catchy choruses, simple riffs... if you get past the oddly sounding distortion, and take out the overt Cowboys from Hell bits, you'll find something not too far removed from some stuff on that Motley Crue album with Corabi.

So it's not bad at all - though the problem is, the songs tend to sound a bit over-similar. The best song on here is probably "Rude Awakening", the title track, which has that great chorus... "it spins you around, takes you for a ride, what is the point to even try" with some cool closing riffs as well. Again, if you like Cowboys from Hell, you'd end up digging this more than likely. "Close the Door", "Controller", "Without Hope" - also solid songs... there really isn't anything bad on here, again it's just that they're kind of all the same. Overall, not bad.