A London bus rolls across the cover of No Tourists, heading toward the Dalston club where The Prodigy played their first show in 1990. The route is number 7, and the album later reached that same spot on the American dance chart. The cover nods to the band's early days, a reminder of how long The Prodigy had been transforming electronic music into something feral, and on November 2, 2018, The Prodigy released their seventh studio album.
No Tourists came with a strong record already attached. It debuted at number one on the UK albums chart, marking the sixth consecutive Prodigy studio album to hit the top spot. Liam Howlett, the group's producer and songwriter, spent 2017 and 2018 recording at Tileyard Studios in King's Cross, London, with some parts captured using mobile gear in various locations. The album clocks in at 37 minutes across ten tracks. These ten tracks feature several singles released both before and after the album. "Need Some1" dropped in July 2018, followed by "Light Up the Sky" in September and "Fight Fire with Fire" in October. "We Live Forever" surfaced just before the album, and "Timebomb Zone" followed in December.
The journey to No Tourists wasn't straightforward. Two years prior, in 2015, Howlett had mentioned shelving full-length albums for EPs because the production process was too lengthy. The turning point arrived in September 2017, when The Prodigy secured a deal with BMG Rights Management, providing them the backing to create another studio record. The album was released on their independent label, Take Me to the Hospital, which is managed by BMG.
One track illustrates how the group still thrived on happy accidents. 'Fight Fire with Fire' started as a remix for the American hip-hop duo Ho99o9, but it ended up on the album instead. A day before release, on October 24, 2018, invited fans had a secret listening session at Egg London, a club situated right next to Tileyard Studios. The record also incorporated borrowed voices. 'Boom Boom Tap' uses a sample from Andy Milonakis's '2 Weeks Sober,' while 'Resonate' pulls from Brother Culture's 'Sound Killer.'
The critics were divided on what they heard. NME gave the album a perfect five stars out of five, whereas Q magazine awarded only two stars. Pitchfork settled in the middle with a 6.2 out of 10. The album sold 23,952 copies in its first week in the UK, including 1,828 from streaming, and later earned a silver certification from the BPI. It was pressed on CD, vinyl, and even cassette.
Keith Flint's voice appears on three songs: 'We Live Forever,' 'Champions of London,' and 'Give Me a Signal.' Maxim sings on four, including the title track and 'Light Up the Sky.' Their shared vocal presence maintained the band's recognizable dynamic.
Then everything stopped. On March 4, 2019, Keith Flint was found dead. The very next day, March 5, 2019, the remaining dates for the world tour, which had begun in November 2018, were cancelled. No Tourists became his final studio album.
The album remains a strange monument. It is the sound of a band that had signed a new deal and returned to the top of the charts. And it is the last record where Keith Flint and Maxim trade vocals over Howlett's relentless beats—a final snapshot of The Prodigy before the silence that followed.