ALBUM REVIEW: Live And Uncleansed – Prong
New York groove metal masters PRONG blazed a trail with their music, starting from the late 1980s and continuing to this day. The music of PRONG took inspiration from crossover, industrial and alternative metal to create a groove orientated and full throttle aural assault that resonated the world over.
The bands heyday was undoubtedly the 90s though, as they followed up the well received but ultimately more underground records Beg To Differ and Prove You Wrong with the massive hit Cleansing in 1994, an album that saw them feature constantly on MTV’s Headbangers Ball (especially the video for the Cleansing smash hit Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck) and massive tours with the likes of fellow metal behemoths SEPULTURE and PANTERA.
Since those Cleansing days, and the 1996 follow up Rude Awakening, the band have seen themselves on several hiatuses but have always come back stronger than ever with some killer records like 2023’s State Of Emergency and their always reliable live shows. It is both Cleansing and that live show that are celebrated on PRONG‘s latest album Live And Uncleansed, and this is a document of how powerful PRONG are in the live arena, and rather than just a typical live run through of the Cleansing album, this is more of a celebration of PRONG and the power of their live show.
Recorded at several shows and festivals in July and August of 2025, including Wacken and Alcatraz, Live And Uncleansed demonstrates the sheer energy of a PRONG performance in all its glory, even with a few mistakes here and there, and this only adds to the whole experience.
The songs from Cleansing obviously play a huge part in this collection with the aforementioned Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck still sounding as huge as it did in 1994 and other tracks like Sublime, Whose Fist Is This Anyway? and Not Of This Earth sounding equally as huge. Although there some tracks from the album like Another Worldly Device that it would have been cool to have included, the album is still celebrated and represented in brilliant fashion.
There are a couple of cool bonuses on here as well with the songs Corpus Delecti and Inheritance included, which were recorded around the time of Cleansing but not included on the album so to have them included on this live album brings this full circle.
Ultimately, Live And Uncleansed shows that PRONG are still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to playing live and Tommy Victors vocals and his crunching riffs in particular are still sounding phenomenal, perhaps better than ever after being honed in so many live gigs, and with this latest lineup of PRONG, he has alongside him, two talented musicians in bassist Christopher Dean and drummer Tyler Joseph, who do the material of Cleansing and beyond proud.
With PRONG very much still a priority for Victor, Live And Uncleansed is a great reminder of how good a band they were in the 1990s, but also that they sound stronger than ever today. With new music from PRONG very much in the pipeline, this is great news for fans of the band both old and new, and of course, that will lead to not to be missed neck snapping live shows, as demonstrated perfectly here.
Rating: 8/10
Live And Uncleansed is out now via Steamhammer.
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