Unitron Attitude, balls-out aggression, and industrial soundscapes: this describes Prong’s 1994 breakthrough album Cleansing. Taking the massive thrashings of Pantera, the grungy aggression of Helmet, and the atmosphere of Killing Joke, Prong threw a bunch of what made 90’s metal great into one absolute sucker-punch of an album.

With this album, Prong hit the perfect stride of simultaneously being monstrously heavy and infectiously catchy. Especially with “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck”, which I would easily call this one of the best songs of the 90’s. The dense, bass-heavy, and rhythmic hook that drives the song makes this an instant mosh-pit anthem. “Cut-Rate” can join the likes of Pantera’s “Domination” and Sepultura’s “Dead Embryonic Cells” as having one of the greatest massive grooves to dominate the bridge of a thrash song, while “Broken Pieces” and “Test” bring in a bit of funky bass to blend with the shredding riffs.

Frontman Tommy Victor barks with utmost conviction throughout each song, and even on the rare chance that the music lets up, he maintains a roughness that still works. With Killing Joke’s Paul Raven on bass coupled with Victor’s love of the band, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that songs like “Not of This Earth” and “Home Rule” are very reminiscent of the aforementioned band. Similar also, is that the whole album maintains an underlying industrial backing sound. Raven and drummer Ted Parsons dominate the entire album with an incredibly strong rhythm section, and Victor’s surging guitar playing blends beautifully to create what really is one of the grooviest albums I’ve ever heard.

While Prong never quite got to the same big-name status as some of their contemporaries, I believe Cleansing deserves to be mentioned alongside classics such as Vulgar Display of Power and Arise as one of the greatest metal albums of the 90’s. When it comes to crushing riffs and monster hooks, Cleansing delivers with some of the best of them.

siLLy puPPy Although beginning as a thrash metal band PRONG had clearly changed their sound by the time they got to their fourth album CLEANSED. Here they take the galloping groove metal guitars and bass of Pantera and mix it with an industrial sound courtesy of new ex-Killing Joke recruits Paul Raven on bass and John Bechdel on keyboards. There's also an alternative and cross-over thrash metal feel to some of it as well reminding a bit of Suicidal Tendencies. This was PRONG's finest hour as this album garnered them enough attention to tour with both Sepultura and Pantera.

I'm really not too keen on Tommy Victor's lack of vocal range and some of the material is fairly generic. There really isn't a lot of variety between many of the tracks either but when they hit a high note like on “Cut-Rate” or “No Question” with groovy heavy bass and squealing guitars then they really deliver an intense and convincing sound, however i'm also underwhelmed by the mostly mediocre drums throughout the entirety of the album. An ok album but doesn't really compete with the groove metal of Pantera or with the industrial or thrash metal of pretty much any of the greats and at this point in time it seems a little weak compared with all that came before it. Point blank not really enough here for me to like.