Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Prey Later, but first get the job done. A mantra to live by when plundering the depths of the soul in search of substance, in search of the body that sustains, to hunt down your prey or pray for salvation, either must give in to the primal urge of seeing the plan laid down in which to take affirmative action.
It is a mantra that Pitchshifter/The Prodigy’s Jim Davies has certainly absorbed as he follows up his debut album Headwars with his subsequent offering to an eager nation in the dynamic, dirty and industrialised Prey Later.
It is to the devouring, heady build up of the album that sees the musician, the composer of such technique and not just reel in the listener, nor just charm them as one would expect a magician to weave an aural spell, but completely blindside the listener, take them down to the docks of life and show them the truth, reveal the storm of existence, and then place an arm around their shoulder and sit with them as their inhibitions and their emotions are allowed finally to understand the bottled up anger within, and let them loose in a rage of fire.
The aftermath of T.N.T., the devastation of the musical dynamite are all to be found and savoured within the sheer scale and structure of the album, and as tracks such as Facts and Figures, Wake Up>React, the beat of Choose Your Poison, Cash Is King and 2020 mercilessly pull at the soul and crush any resistance to remaining ignorant of the world around our collective, often dampened spirits, and the result is one without mercy, just exceptionally driven pulses of life, of the respectable truth kicking and screaming its way into the minds of the populace.
Disdainful of ignorance, contemptuous of the aloof, seriously unsuppressed, Prey Later is a force of nature released into the so-called civilised pastures; like a hungry wolf feeling itself salivate at the prospect of dinner but knowing full well first it must defend its corner from the bears and bulls, before chowing down on the prey later in the day, it is ready to pounce and devour with ease.
Jim Davies’ Prey Later is out now on Armalyte Records.
Ian D. Hall