Prodigy Set to Return

By Trent McMartin Mar 20, 2006, 21:08 GMT

The Prodigy - as most people know the group - has been away from the spotlight a long time. Not since 1997’s hugely successful Fat of the Land has the entire group recorded an album together. 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned did have the Prodigy moniker on it but was essentially a Liam Howlett solo project since vocalists Maxim and Keith Flint did not take part.

Now, after almost a decade away from the North American limelight, the group, which penned such unforgettable cuts as “Firestarter” and “Breathe,” are about to return stronger than ever.

“We feel like a new band," Keith Flint said recently to Chartattack. "When we came on stage in Tokyo, it felt like we were a new band. We weren't going through the motions. We felt like a new band totally, and we were on fire. We got a new studio up and running in London, and we've had that for about a year, but now we've got the energy to go and write that new album.”

"That's what drives us,” he continued. “Tracks like 'Spitfire,' they just drop, man. It just ignites, and that's all that matters. We are really buzzing at the moment."

Though 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned was a hit in the U.K., audiences in North America stayed away, many thinking Flint and Maxim had left the group.

“I think personally that it is a wicked album," Flint maintained even though he didn’t appear on it. "It's one of those albums that people discover for themselves and think, 'You know, I quite dig this.' It might be something in the Prodigy catalogue that people might discover a little more because it wasn't shoved down their throats. The album gave us the chance to start touring again and become the band that we always were and will be, and that's wicked. It's probably the most precious of all the albums, really."

The three-piece version of the Prodigy (dancer Leeroy Thornhill left the group in 2000) is in Toronto, Canada to play a show at the famed Kool Haus March 21.