One of the neat things about this job is that I’m often hit by
\nthe uncontrollable urge to listen to something that I’ve not
\ntouched in years. In the halls of the Pierce Memorial Archives, I
\nhave boxes upon boxes of cassette tapes that I’ve accumulated over
\nthe years – many of which I’ve forgotten I even owned. But when I
\nget the wanderlust to dig through these boxes, it’s like a treasure
\nhunt.<\/p>\n
On one such dig, I came across
\nBeg To Differ<\/i>, the 1990 major-label debut of the
\npseudo-thrash band Prong. (You’ll understand why I’ve labelled them
\nthis way in a paragraph or two.) Back in 1990, it was almost like
\ntheir label was packaging the trio to be the next Metallica – down
\nto even using the illustratror so charmingly known as Pushead (he’s
\ndone a lot of work for Metallica) for the cover art.<\/p>\n
But Metallica these guys weren’t. They knew how to turn up the
\nburners and pound hell out of their instruments… but more often
\nthan not, they were more interested in laying down a solid metal
\ngroove than playing fast. And though it takes some time for
\nBeg To Differ<\/i> to feel comfortable (geez, it took me nine
\nyears!), it has stood the test of time, turning out to be an album
\nahead of its time.<\/p>\n
The trio – drummer\/vocalist Ted Parsons, bassist\/vocalist Mike
\nKirkland and guitarist\/vocalist Tommy Victor – did the unthinkable
\nwhen it came to thrash metal, at least for 1990: they threw in more
\nchallenging rhythms, and dared to put the “thrash” in one
\nparticular portion of an instrument. One example that comes to mind
\nis during “Steady Decline,” when Parsons bangs out an unbelievable
\nrhythm on the hi-hat cymbals, backed with some crunching harmonics
\nfrom Victor. (As hard as I tried, it was almost impossible to hear
\nKirkland’s bass on this album; I liked the bass work much better
\none album later on the track “Get A Grip On Yourself”.)<\/p>\n
Victor doesn’t go off the deep end solo-wise on
\nBeg To Differ<\/i>, but he also doesn’t shy away from a guitar
\nsolo, either. However, some of the solos tended to be disappointing
\nto my ears – never mind the fact that I couldn’t reproduce them if
\nI tried. Maybe part of the reason that the importance of the solo
\nwas downplayed is because this is a three-piece band, and such
\npyrotechnics would be hard to reproduce live. When Victor did solo,
\nI’d venture to say that it was more of a rhythmic solo; his rhythm
\nguitar work is phenomenal.<\/p>\n
The one song that did make it off this album as a single, “Lost
\nAnd Found,” is unfortunately a poor track to select. The label
\nwould have been better off choosing a song like “For Dear Life,”
\n“Your Fear” or even the title track. Sometimes, Prong reminds me a
\nlot of Helmet, only with more of an edge. (It’s also worth noting
\nthat Parsons’s drum sound was recorded very well; his trap work on
\n“Beg To Differ” constantly blows me away.)<\/p>\n
I don’t know if this album is still around, but if you’re in the
\nmood for something that still goes against the grain, then
\nBeg To Differ<\/i> is a great choice. Just give yourself plenty
\nof time to get used to it; it’s not the easiest listen right out of
\nthe box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7322],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38819","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-prong","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38819"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38819"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}