The Day Is My Enemy

The first known existence of new material from the Prodigy came in 2011 when the band debuted new tracks at their live performances. The first two of these tracks were "A.W.O.L." and "Dogbite", with 2012 yielding a new track called "Jetfighter".[5] Liam Howlett had reaffirmed that the new album would be "darker" in contrast to their previous releases.[6] On 3 May 2012, the tentative album title was revealed as How to Steal a Jetfighter.[7] On 2 July 2014, the Prodigy announced that the album was to be re-introduced with a brand new name.[8]

The second working title of the album was Rebel Radio until it underwent another change. Howlett explained that this was because he had a hard time imagining it working as an album title, and instead settled on making that the title of one of the album tracks.[9]

The album was written and recorded largely while on tour, in various hotel rooms around the world, on flights, at the Prodigy's private studio at Tileyard Studios as well as mixed at SARM.[10] Howlett found that "violent is the word that keeps on coming up" when describing the album. The entire recording process took almost six years taking in a number of studios and a few restarts to establish that "angry, energetic sound". Unlike previous efforts The Day Is My Enemy became a band-album where Flint and Maxim worked in tandem with Howlett. This created a degree of friction although Flint noted that "four years ago we sat down and talked about where the next album was gonna go, and we knew we had to bust out the most ‘band’ album we could create".[11]

The album's title track was the last track to be produced for the album. In an interview with BBC Radio 6 Music, Howlett mentioned that the idea of the track came about when one of his friends, Olly Burden, had presented Howlett with a guitar riff he had made, which would eventually serve as the main basis for the track. Howlett got an idea for a track and asked for the riff's use during the production, with him finding the results good enough to serve as an album opener. The track also includes additional drumming performance provided by the Switzerland-based drum corps, Top Secret Drum Corps.[12][10]

The song "Ibiza" (featuring Sleaford Mods) is a critique of the superstar DJ culture. Howlett explained that "we did a gig in Ibiza, and I’m not a great fan of the place, but it isn’t an attack on the island, it’s an attack on these mindless fucking jokers that arrive in their Learjets, pull a USB stick out of their pockets, plug it in and wave their hands in the air to a pre-programmed mix".[11]

The first single, "Nasty", was announced on the band's Instagram and Facebook pages on 29 December 2014.[13] A music video was released on 12 January 2015, which prominently featured the fox from the album cover.[14]

On 26 January 2015 the band released the official audio for the title track "The Day Is My Enemy" on their official YouTube channel and as a digital downloadable promotional single.[15] The official music video for the third single, "Wild Frontier", was released on 23 February 2015. The music video was directed by the Dutch filmmaker Mascha Halberstad[16] and animator Elmer Kaan.[17]

"Wall of Death" was released on 16 March 2015 as a promotional single, accompanied by a lyric video.[18] UK retailer HMV announced during the week leading up to the album's release that they would stock an exclusive EP alongside the album which would mainly consist of remixes of "Nasty" and "Wild Frontier".[19] "Ibiza" was released as the album's third official and fifth overall single on 23 March 2015, with "Rhythm Bomb" being released a promotional single on 25 March 2015. "Get Your Fight On" was released as a promotional single on 26 March 2015. The music video for "Ibiza" was uploaded to the Prodigy's YouTube channel on 20 April 2015.

During the evening of 3 April 2015, the band projected images of the album cover across several landmarks in London as a form of guerrilla marketing. The cover was projected onto the Battersea Power Station, the London Underground station at Shoreditch High Street and on the Houses of Parliament, with the projections garnering a relative amount of authority attention. The band posted photos and videos of the event on their Facebook and Instagram pages, with a hashtag that referenced the band's track "Their Law" from Music for the Jilted Generation.[20]

The Day Is My Enemy was released on 30 March 2015[21] by record labels Take Me to the Hospital/Cooking Vinyl in the UK and Three Six Zero Music/Warner Bros. Records in the United States.[22]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	5.7/10[23]
Metacritic	67/100[24]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[25]
Billboard	[26]
The Daily Telegraph	[27]
The Guardian	[28]
Mixmag	8/10[29]
Mojo	[30]
NME	8/10[31]
Pitchfork	6.0/10[32]
Rolling Stone	[33]
Uncut	7/10[34]

In contrast to their two previous albums, critical response to The Day Is My Enemy was positive. It currently has an aggregate score of 67 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating generally favorable reviews.[24]

Kerrang! awarded the album their highest rating, describing it as "simultaneously galvanised by both a thrilling creative resurgence and the social unrest that comes when people are cocooned by a culture of fear", and called it the most exciting and angrily British album of the year.[35] NME thought of the tracks as being written mainly for live performances, but nonetheless cited it as "the strongest and most confident Prodigy album since The Fat of the Land".[31] Consequence of Sound cited "Beyond the Deathray" as the highlight of the album, stating that it "epitomizes this new band-focused approach, and it’s probably the most beautiful track in The Prodigy’s discography".[36]

AllMusic found that the band-focused approach benefited several tracks on the album, but overall criticized the general length of the album, finding that at 14 tracks it is "built for returning fan club members and not the EP-craving EDM crowd".[25] In a more scathing review, Drowned in Sound echoed similar criticisms, claiming that the band "embraces their psycho circus shtick to the point of suffocation".[37] Daryl Keating of Exclaim! was critical of the group's attempts at recapturing their old school breakbeat sound and "awful stylistic combinations," calling the record "an embarrassing display that inevitably ends badly."[38]

The Day Is My Enemy debuted at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's sixth consecutive record to have reached the top of the chart.[39]