The Prodigy: Their Law The Singles 1990 - 2005 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The uneven journey of one U.K. band from club heroes to stadium-techno monsters following the lackluster sales and reviews for 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, the Prodigy are aiming to milk their back catalog with this two-disc collection of hits and rarities. For its first ten tracks, Disc One provides arena-rave bliss via familiar anthems like "Firestarter," but lesser singles yield diminishing pleasures. Disc Two's outtakes, remixes, B sides and live tracks reaffirm that leader Liam Howlett and cronies veered dramatically between brilliance and mediocrity throughout their career: After hitting the U.K. pop charts in 1991 with their hardcore-rave breakthrough "Charly," the Prodigy embraced rock & roll-size ambitions. Early fans griped when the band morphed into a metal-techno monster, but four 1997 concert cuts and a new mix of "Voodoo People" rock triumphantly hard.