In 2016, when Prong were on a bill with Obituary and Exodus, I wrote that they weren’t out of place one bit. I said Tommy Victor’s band sounded like they wanted to hit you over the head with a breeze-block. A decade on, “Live And Uncleansed” suggests that absolutely nothing has softened.
That is very much the point.
Recorded across seven dates in July and August 2025 on the 31st anniversary run for “Cleansing”, this is gloriously unapologetic stuff. Prong have never been a band interested in tidying themselves up for polite company, and Tommy Victor saying the little mistakes have been left in tells you everything you need to know. This is not one of those live albums where all the danger gets sanded off afterwards. It is meant to sound like Prong. Raw. Hard. Honest. Slightly threatening. Exactly as is.
And the truth is, everything here feels like a fight. Everything is a battle and Tommy don’t intend to lose the fucker. Even the crowd commands have that quality. When he barks at people to get their hands up, it doesn’t sound like a request so much as an instruction issued from the front line. There are full-on thrash bands that aren’t this intense.
“Revenge… Best Served Cold” opens things with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the ribs, and from there the record barely loosens its grip. “Inheritance” and “The Descent” are all tight, coiled aggression, while “One Outnumbered” and “No Question” remind you just how good Prong have always been at locking into a brutal groove and making it feel like the walls are moving in. This stuff is lean, hostile and purposeful. It could start a moshpit in a morgue.
But this is also why Prong have always deserved more credit than they sometimes get. For all the pummelling force, they are not just a blunt instrument. They are good at melody too, and “Sublime” proves it. So does the shape of the whole set, really. There is light and shade in amongst all the concrete. “Not Of This Earth” and “Home Rule” drip with menace, but they do so with a real sense of craft. Prong are so underrated and so classy because they understand that heaviness is not only about speed or noise. Sometimes the slower moments hit harder. When “However It May End” arrives with its line about “the future of America is at stake”, the reduced pace somehow makes it even more menacing.
Then, of course, come the big guns. “Ultimate Authority” is still absurdly heavy, all these years on, and “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” remains the sort of anthem that turns a room feral on impact. The bonus cuts only add to the sense that Victor and co were not messing about here either. “Out Of This Misery”, “Corpus Delecti” and “Whose Fist Is It Anyway” feel less like extras and more like further proof of the depth in the catalogue. There is so much menace here, so much fury, and yet it never feels sloppy or mindless. It feels controlled. Directed. Weaponised.
Maybe that is why Prong have endured. Tommy Victor has always sounded like a man rebelling against what he’s got, against what is in front of him, against whatever fresh nonsense the world has decided to throw up next. This kind of anger comes from somewhere real. There is incredible fury in these performances, but also purpose, and that combination is what makes Prong such a singular band.
I’ve often thought live performances are never truly captured on live albums. Usually, something gets lost. The room. The threat. The feeling that this music is happening right there in front of you and could go off the rails in the best possible way at any moment. “Live And Uncleansed” doesn’t quite disprove the rule, because maybe nothing ever fully can, but it gets a damn sight closer than most. More importantly, it sounds exactly like Prong should sound: harsh, alive, unvarnished and still capable of making everything else seem a bit too tame.
RATING 8.5/10
