There’s a big trend going on right now with bands that hail from the 70’s through 90’s bands. They’re all touring on their classic hits and not releasing any new material. Poison anyone? And while touring is better than nothing, it’s still not as good as a band that still releases new material. Priest and Maiden do it. The big four of thrash have done it, although Metallica needs to be more consistent with their output. But there’s a metal band out there out producing them all. It’s Prong!! Since the band’s 2012 release ‘Carved Into Stone’, Prong has been releasing quality, well produced material consistently. How consistently? Well, they just released their tenth album last year and their new album ‘Zero Days’ is about to drop on July 28th. Holy hell! Why aren’t there more bands doing this? Consecutive albums in consecutive years? That just doesn’t happen anymore. It used to be a standard. KISS released four albums in 24 months when they first started. Granted one of those is a live album but it’s still an impressive amount of work in a short period of time. Then things changed. Albums were released with more time apart. Then services such as Napster happened and the record industry took a huge hit. It costs a lot of money to make an album and when all the music went up online for free the industry had to make some adjustments. One of those is to churn out as many cheap, new, pop solo artists as possible. The other is tour bands that have a legacy on their old material. But making new material is a struggle because: A) it’s expensive and B) people won’t buy it and get the record companies investment back.
But then technology caught up. And since roughly 2010 there have been a number of high quality recording devices made. There’s so many brands now it’s almost overwhelming. You can buy a little tiny microphone for your jam room and soup up your mac or pc and bam! You’ve got a home studio that can create professional sounding material for cheap. Many record companies and bands have taken advantage of this and Prong is number one. All they need is a distributor (in this case Steamhammer records), a place to record and a producer if they choose. Then go on tour and have a great time. Another element that helps, of course, is inspiration. Tommy Victor (leader of the band) is a very inspired guitar riff writer. He knows the kinds of big metal riffs people want to hear and he just pukes ’em out like it’s nothing. He certainly deserves more credit than he gets. This band should be headlining arenas. Not supporting two acts just to get substantial audiences. I caught them on the ‘No Absolutes’ tour at the Whisky A Go Go and they were tremendous. My first mosh pit actually. Do yourself a favor. Save the date, get the album when it drops and make sure you catch Prong on tour! This band is not to be overlooked or missed.
Some tracks displaying recent Prong quality. More of this please!!
AND THIS!!
