Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	53/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	B−
Drowned in Sound	8/10
The Guardian
Mojo
NME	6/10
Pitchfork	3.9/10
PopMatters	neutral
Q
Rolling Stone

Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned is the fourth studio album by English electronic music group The Prodigy. The album was released in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2004 under XL Recordings, and in North America on 15 September 2004 by Mute Records and Maverick Records. It was the last album from the band to be distributed under the labels. Recorded almost entirely using the Propellerhead Reason program, with the mastering being done on Pro Tools, the album contrasts with their previous releases, and features a larger use of vocals than the group's third album, The Fat of the Land (1997). The album title is a play on the name of the Walter Mosely novel Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. It was produced entirely by Liam Howlett. Keith Flint's and Keith Palmer's (Maxim Reality's) vocals do not appear in this album. By this stage Leeroy Thornhill had left the group.

Despite achieving commercial success upon release, the album is among the band's lowest-sellers. Record labels who distributed Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned dropped The Prodigy after the release of Their Law: The Singles 1990–2005 one year later.

In 1996, The Prodigy rose to fame outside their native UK with "Firestarter", the lead single from The Fat of the Land, which was released in 1997 and topped several charts, including the Billboard 200. The band ended the tour that promoted the album, taking a break from touring and recording and writing material for their fourth studio album. To coincide with the departure of Leeroy Thornhill during the period, the band shut down their official website for over two years, with its home page replaced with a logo of the band and the text "We will be back" set against a black background, leading to rumours that the band went on hiatus. The website was relaunched prior to releasing a new single in 2002.

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Wikipedia