THE BEAST

Prodigium - Self Titled LP - Reviewed By Necromance ! check it out here at this link: http://necromance.eu/prodigium-usa-progidium/

One of the positive things that the 2020 quarantine allowed us was to spend time with ourselves and with what we like to do the most: rehearse with our instrument, paint, read, write, ... At the end of the day, do things that we always want do but our day to day does not allow it to the extent that we would like.

For cousins ​​Lloyd Bourne and Robert Van Zandt, who had been writing music together and composing demos since 2010, the quarantine left them a space to edit, rewrite and record all those songs and group them into their debut album under the name PRODIGIUM.

The self-titled album is spun by a series of six tracks framed in Groove Metal and is that the members from Jackson (Mississipi), acquire their influence from groups like PANTERA, MACHINE HEAD and other bands of the 90s.

The first of all, “Heathen”, begins with negative environmental overtones that soon lead to gutturals surrounded by instrumental rudeness. Could you describe the pandemic situation for us? The truth is that, although it might seem so, the theme tells us about war and how it impacts human souls.

I really like how they use the chirps of the guitar to simulate the whinnying of a horse, which is the allegory of war and we see it represented on the album cover itself.

The second song is "The USSA". It is a seven-minute theme of incessant blows against the American regime. They seem to have sensed the assault that we saw recently on the Capitol, with this irony they could have chosen the subject to put it on the news.

"Warhorse" is, for me, the main song of the album because all that sought "essence" resides in it: Groove, melodic bases and politics injected into the warlike. All of them together with the influence of Phil Anselmo in the vocal part and a search for the 90s sound in the riffs and bass, although I have to say that they move away from that musical nostalgia and we listen to a more “modern” metal and integrated in this decade .

In fourth position we hear “Broken”. It is the darkest theme and shows the feeling that comes with leaving a home to start a new life and an underlying theme which is the fight against oppression. The riffs are raw and metallic, screwing up as if they were the very anxiety that the lyrics tell us.

In second to last place and reflecting the search for freedom, we have “Unchained” with a rather nostalgic sound that reminds us of some 90s bands not only of metal but also of grunge. In those guitar echoes it seemed to me to see a trail of ALICE IN CHAINS but much more crushed and ground.

To close the album, PRODIGIUM sets us up with a nostalgic beat that unfolds incessantly on rhythm guitar while the main one tells us another story, the fight against your enemy. From almost the second minute, things change in this song called "The Tempest Will Rise" taking us to the other extreme and destroying everything in its path to make us shake our necks with them. Finally and to round off, the song takes up the initial steps with which the song began and leaves us in an unanswered question.

We could not ask for more for a debut album that has managed to weave itself in the time in which we find ourselves. Perhaps the only downside I see, of course as a personal opinion, is the flat sound. It lacks form and game, but as I said before, it is a debut album and we cannot take the credit for the editing, composition and recording. They have more than projected the idea they had and have known how to develop it, now we just have to continue and give it a go. 6.5/10 - Necromance

Prodigium is a libertarian two piece groove metal band from Jackson , MS . Formed in 2010 when cousins Lloyd Bourne and Robert Van Zandt started writing metal music together. The songs they wrote over the following two years would languish as demos until the 2020 quarantine where they were rerecorded and re-imagined. That work culminated in their debut self-titled album Prodigium . Inspired by Pantera , Machine Head and the greater early 90’s groove metal scene, Prodigium’s debut album is political, melodic and most of all brutal. The opener of the album Heathen tells the story of the cost of war on the human soul and features a guitar solo from Cameron Losch of Born of Osiris . The U.S.S.A . is a searing 7 minute attack on the American regime followed by the album's single Warhorse , a biting critique on the overreaching American government. Broken follows Warhorse in the track listing and it is both the story of leaving where you were raised to start a new life as well as leaving to fight oppression . The second to last track on the album is Unchained a bombastic song about finding freedom . The final and longest song on the album is The Tempest Will Rise a sprawling 9 minute song about taking the fight to your enemy. Download it for free on Bandcamp or stream it on all your favorite streaming services. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/6PskTIKWtZFwNIlOqvgajs?si=F7dHnrq5QNSzRpVxNY7u4Q

https://music.apple.com/us/album/prodigium/1522574867

https://prodigium.bandcamp.com/releases