Long Branch Records
All Access Review: A-
All Access Review: A-
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| Prong - Carved into Stone 2012 |
Mavericks in a thrash-metal scene that placed more of a
premium on playing with wild abandon and blistering speed than rigid precision,
Prong and its brutally intense major-label classic Cleansing, from 1994, was only slightly looser and a tad less
militaristic than Helmet’s rugged Meantime.
Pummeling industrial minimalism that seemed to march to the orders of an unseen
drill sergeant set Prong apart from the herd it had taken a cattle prod to in hard-hitting
pieces like “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” and “Whose Fist Is This Anyway?”
In the years since, Prong, on occasion, has grown even more taut and
single-minded, sometimes mistakenly neglecting the barely harnessed power of
its formidable low end. Released from Al Jourgensen’s 13th Planet
label – Prong mastermind Tommy Victor also played with Ministry in the early
2000s – and winding up on SPV’s new Long Branch Records imprint, the crossover
terrorists have significantly fattened a wiry sonic frame that had grown too
lean.
In doing so, they have created a monster, the seething sonic
psychopath Carved into Stone. Still
painting bleak, disturbing visions of urban decay and street-level violence
with technically brilliant musicianship, the harsh realities of Prong’s more
recent diatribes are delivered with raging guitars, barking vocals and the double-kick
drum blunt-force trauma of Alexei Rodriguez. Roaring out of the gate, the speed-metal
blitz of opener “Eternal Heat” leaves one breathless, just as the visceral acts
of sonic aggression that follow – namely, “Keep on Living in Pain” and
“Ammunition” – somehow maintain the impossible breakneck pace previously set. Thicker
and heavier, “Path of Least Resistance” and the surging title track, with its
punching-bag rhythms and the kind of widescreen, black-hole choruses the
Deftones get lost in, are mazes of dynamic riffage, while “Revenge … Best
Served Cold” and “State of Rebellion” subversively chisel biting melodies into their
uncompromising marriage of industrial and metal sadomasochism. An awesome
sculpture of sound and fury, Carved into
Stone is guilty of an aural assault so devastating that it really ought to
be locked up.
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Peter Lindblad
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