The Formative Years - Prong
It was a pure coincidence that I came across Prong in the early 1990s via a tape a much older metalhead friend compiled for me and it took me a while to get into them.
While it felt like metal, there was something unique to their sound as they managed to create a melange of seemingly contrasting musical influences with their own idiosyncratic twist on it.
Prong’s full-length Beg to Differ did not only come with cover artwork courtesy of but was essentially one of the first recordings that was not only rooted in thrash metal but with its up-tempo, dissonant pumping riffage laid down what later on was to be classified as “groove metal”. It kicked open the doors and created a foundation and reference point for bands like Helmet, Pantera and White Zombie to base their sound on.
By marrying the rawness of punk with subliminal stop and go rhythms of noise rock and thereby utilizing negative space to their advantage, Prong was one of the distinctive trailblazing pioneers of slick and accessible alternative metal
While the sound production feels at times a tad sterile and clinical and could have benefitted from a bit of grime, Beg to Differ is a classic album that broadened my horizon and appreciation for experimentation and heaviness opposed to speed.
