Prick’s self-titled debut record is available on most major streaming services, including Apple Music, Spotify, Qobuz, Deezer, and YouTube Music. The album, produced in part by Trent Reznor, pairs theatrical industrial punk with the glam-flavored flamboyance of T. Rex records.
Reznor lent production talents to old friend Kevin McMahon, from the new wave band Lucky Pierre, while deep in the recording process for The Downward Spiral. Reznor was briefly a member of Lucky Pierre. He is credited as producer on four tracks off the Prick debut, though his fingerprints are all over it.
The opener, “Communiqué,” is a fuzzy blast of simple punk riffs with electronic sprinklings. McMahon’s vocals detour from half-spoken verses that sound borrowed from a musical to full-throated screams. The rough production and focus on live instrumentation feel like a prototype for what Reznor would eventually revisit on With Teeth.
The second track, “Riverhead,” carries Reznor’s influences even though he is not credited as its producer. The vocal melodies swerve like Outside- and Earthling-era Bowie around guitars that buzz with the digital charr of the Broken EP. Around the three-minute mark, a breakdown builds with layers of electronic drums, mechanical chords, and loping synthetic-sounding guitar melodies. The back chunk could have been a Downward Spiral or The Fragile B-side.
Those richly layered production moments are almost always immediately undermined, as with the sloppy garage-punk intro of “Tough.” McMahon is not afraid to get goofy and over-the-top with his vocal performances. He is willing to let the guitar drift out of time, the bass strings rattle, and revels in industrial lo-fi.
“Animal” is perhaps the best-known track from the album, its video having received at least some MTV airplay. It combines backward melodic samples reminiscent of “Closer” and follows a similar lyrical theme, with McMahon singing about consent and scent bringing out the savage and the animal in him. Where “Closer” opts for slinky disco sleaze, “Animal” is all raw shouted desire.
“I Apologize” is the most scatter-brained track on the album. It opens with awkward whip-crack-like percussion and McMahon singing slightly flat and unaffected, before taking off into a jangly new wave verse that morphs into a hard-rock stop in the chorus. The second verse is all “Space Oddity”-era Bowie acoustic strums, then a solo that sounds like an arcade machine on the verge of meltdown. That drops into a Ministry-esque dirge of layered guitars and screams. The song then returns to the chorus, adding elements until it is stuffed to capacity and collapses on itself.
Prick’s self-titled record has plenty in common with other ‘90s industrial acts. McMahon is clearly having a lot more fun than many of his contemporaries, which helps elevate it above the myriad Nine Inch Nails wannabes out there.
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