Details
Track Listing
1. Spitfire
2. Girls
3. Memphis Bells
4. Get up Get Off
5. Hot Ride
6. Wake up Call
7. Action Radar
8. Medusa's Path
9. Phoenix
10. You'll Be Under My Wheels
11. Way It Is, The
12. Shoot Down
13. More Girls
Album Notes
Additional personnel include: Juliette Lewis, Liam Gallagher, Ping Pong Bitches, Princess Superstar (vocals); Noel Gallagher (bass guitar); Kool Keith, Shahin Badir, Twista, Paul "Dirtcandy" Jackson.
After a seven-year break between studio albums, 2004's ALWAYS OUTNUMERED, NEVER OUTGUNNED returned the Prodigy to the ranks of the movers and shakers in mainstream electronica. From the record's lead-off track, "Spitfire," it is clear that group mastermind Liam Howlett (now essentially a one-man band) hasn't lost his touch--thunderous beats abet aggressive guitar, keyboards, and samples, while snaking melodies rise and fall, and actress Juliette Lewis screams a repeating vocal tag. This level of intensity rarely slackens over the course of the record.
In addition to its superior, high-end production, fist-pumping choruses, and insidiously propulsive rhythms (the undulating bass groove of "Hot Ride"--its refrain filched from Jimmy Webb's "Up, Up and Away"--is one of the highlights), ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED is graced by distinguished guests. Twista (reputedly one of the fastest rappers on earth) spits rhymes throughout "Get Up Get Off" at a mind-boggling pace. Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher takes a turn on the mic on "Shoot Down," and Kool Keith turns up on the aggro-electro-funk of "Wake Up Call." But it is Howlett's knob-twiddling that commands most of the attention here, sustaining the Prodigy's long-held claim to making some of the most meticulously constructed, brain-rattling club music around.
Industry Reviews
3 stars out of 5 - [I]t's good to hear such scabrous, punishing beats at a time when they're the last things on most groups' minds...
Howlett's infatuation with maximum-overdrive big beats and fire-alarm chaos endures on ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED, NEVER OUTGUNNED; his tracks are on perpetual orange-level alert. - Grade: B-
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