Album Title: Builders of the Future
Release Date: May 27, 2014
Recording Company: T-Boy Records/UMe
Review by: Stina Marie Harris
In a world where perception is yours and reality is merely a suggestion lives a band full of sci-fi possibilities and a constant of weird. Powerman 5000 is a band from Boston that found themselves crusading a style and a persona on the music scene individual enough to gain attention and cult classic enough to find a flock eager to follow and flow to their trippy electro brand of pop metal. Mix in a bleached blonde spikey hair lead singer, who just so happens to be the brother of acclaimed rock royalty Rob Zombie, and anthemic singles suggesting an uprise in the pit of your usually teenage angst filled stomach, and you’ll get an other worldly melodic sound with a sonically aggressive punch to your futuristic comic book “maybe people really are programmed drones” mindset.
The boys are back with a new line up and that original sound that put Powerman 5000 on the map with a vibe and a groove very unique to their all too distinctive flair. Builders of the Future will resonate with those of us that still have Tonight the Stars Revolt! in our cd cases but may make no new fans. The album hits hard and delivers a few radio friendly singles but offers a too abrupt delivery of their electro metal sound just skimming the surface instead of delving deep into their inner weirdness and dance pop hybrid creation to which they are known. Still, the album Builders of the Future is short and sweet and is dotted with lyrics and instrumental risks worthy of multiple listens. It’s a full on assault of the industrial metal that was all too everywhere in the late 90s but faded just as quickly leaving the mighty to rekindle the whispered and disappearing sound. Powerman 5000 reignites the flame and takes their rightful place securing the electro-metal-dance-pop-industrial sound into a decade that may or may not receive the almost forgotten sonic accomplishment in cross contaminating such far away genres. Don’t call it a comeback. They’ve been here before. Don’t call them one-hit-wonders. Call them the little engine that could bring back what’s been overlooked. Chuga-Chuga-Woo-Wooooo!
But perhaps, as shows take on the form of long forgotten comic books, and movies get geekier and geekier, and the idea of sci fi reality is front and center on our news channels, a little spot for Powerman 5000 might just be resurfacing in pop culture. Perhaps now is the perfect time for music to get weird again.
The album opens up very strong with “Invade Destroy Repeat” and offers a refreshing and very current sound formidable enough to step up to the hard rock favorites blaring from your car radio. The sequence of songs is smart and captures the listener regardless of their metal taste with this fierce opener providing a heartbeat to the album. Although not strong enough to carry the momentum through the rest of the album, it acts as the perfect springboard into the next couple of songs. Builders of the Future dropped May 27, 2014 on T-Boy Records and finds its name borrowed from a line in the movie 1984, Orwell’s masterpiece: “We are the children, builders of the future”.
The first single “How to be Human” sings like a manual they should consider handing out with birth certificates. Or, keep on record for when the robots take over and mix with the natives. “How to be Human” continues with a sci fi vibe and thrives in the PM5k sound the fans will recognize as organic and true tested. As a song the boys have been playing on the road for just about a year, “How to be Human” is a win and a window into the 90s. Its high energy and chanting lyrics remind us, “this is how to be, this is how to be, this is how to be a human”.
POWERMAN 5000 – “HOW TO BE A HUMAN” (LYRIC VIDEO)
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The entire album is only about four traffic lights (in Jersey traffic that is) and simply boasts 10 songs at a little over a half hour long. “I Want to Kill You” falls right in the middle of the lineup and calms things down with a haunting murder ballad disguised as an acoustic love song that kicks up dust in the middle and screams intensity somewhat quietly between “I want to kill you” whispers in, what we can only imagine is the closet of a jilted lover voyeuristically hovering in the dark. An interesting left, this song adds some layered flexibility to the album while still staying true to PM5ks futuristic vibe mixed with an attempt to try something different. It works, and works very well. Songs not to skip include, “Live It Up Before You’re Dead” and “Builders of the Future”.
Builders of the Future is a fine return for Powerman 5000 in a music scene hungry for something new yet something old. Their approach towards a sound that they now seem very comfortable with and embrace is a solid attempt at proving that ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’. PM5k will squeeze its place among the sounds currently polluting our radio airwaves with a futuristic vibe and a giant crowd roaring electro-metal-dance attitude big enough and crazy enough to carry the band right into their next album. The momentum is back and the Powerman 5000 vibe is hot enough to see it added to your music rotation just like back in the day. Unless of course, it never left.
Spider One – Vocals / Richard Jazmin – Guitar / Nick Quijano – Guitar / Gustavo Aued – Bass / Dj Rattan – Drums
(photo credit Christine Connolly)
Builders of the Future Track listing:
01. Invade, Destroy, Repeat
02. We Want It All
03. How To Be A Human
04. You’re Gonna Love It, If You Like It Or Not
05. Builders Of The Future
06. I Want To Kill You
07. Modern World
08. Live It Up Before You’re Dead
09. I Can’t F-cking Hear You
10. Evil World
