Prong
Beg to Differ

THE REVIEW

Prong are certainly one of the most innovative and influential bands in the metal music scene, and not just in America.

The group was formed in the mid-80s, in the midst of the Californian thrash tumult, in New York, the same city of origin of one of the most successful bands of the genre from those years and the only one not from San Francisco's Bay Area that managed to effectively combat the dominance of various bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, Testament and so on, namely Anthrax.
Even though they share with Joey Belladonna’s band the primordial intention of crossing over speed metal with certain hardcore rhythms, Prong differentiated themselves from Anthrax and most of the groups that were popular at the time with their subtly industrial and futuristic visions that ended up enormously influencing people like Fear Factory, Korn, Helmet, Deftones, and, in general, a good part of the U.S. alternative scene of the '90s.

"Beg To Differ", is undoubtedly a refined work and a piece of great class.
The album sounds somewhere between Sabbathian riffing and the acidic beats loved by early Killing Joke, and it's characterized by a crystalline production that makes it much less metal compared to other albums and more, in a sense, psychedelic and, in some points, wave.
The goal of the clean sound of the tracks is precisely to alienate the listener’s ear, directing it towards more experimental sounds (emblematic, in this sense, is "Prime Cut", an obsessive and dark industrial rock psychodrama, almost dark, which manages to create with its unsettling chorus ("The cut is very thought, gristles good enough, they all need a bite...") a sense of frustration and discomfort that hits you right in the stomach).
As said, the metallic component (at least the "speed" one) is significantly weakened and peeks through in "Take it in Hand", with the apocalyptic intro that recalls the memory of Killing Joke's "Requiem", then developing into a tangle of riffs launched at breakneck speed by Tommy Victor, and in the psycho-industrial-thrash instrumental of "Intermenstrual, D.S.B.".
For the rest, this "Beg To Differ" consists of tracks structured around the classic rhythmic component formed by the clean guitar passages of Victor, accompanied by his aphonic and almost hinted singing, which, in my opinion, makes the album even more experimental than what they themselves intended, and by the superb performance of Kirkland on bass and, above all, Ted Parsons on drums, the latter being truly a magnificent drummer.

The best episodes are found in the already mentioned "Prime Cut", in the psychedelic hard-rock alternation of "Lost and Found", in the sinister hopeless progression of "Your Fear" ("Surrender your fear, Crawl into the flame..."), in the heavy industrial of "Steady Decline".
A special mention goes to the last track of the work, recorded live, "Third From The Sun", a cover of Chrome, a magnificent song that combines all the influences of "Beg To Differ", namely the dark rhythmic timbre of Sabbath combined with decadent wave-industrial sounds and spiced with a touch of psychedelia.

In conclusion, there's little to say, except to recommend that you listen to what is, perhaps, the best album in the discography of a truly talented group which, fortunately, is recently being re-evaluated.