Customer Reviews

Destroy What You Enjoy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

When Dreamworks Records closed its doors in 2003, Powerman 5000, along with most of the label's roster, were left out in the cold. Rather than cave under the pressure of being labelless and broke, the band took a brief hiatus to reevaluate their lineup, then spent the next year on the road, touring and writing songs for what would eventually take shape as the self-released follow up to 2003's Transform.

Destroy What You Enjoy may not be artful or sophisticated by any standards, and it certainly won't offer any competition to, say, Tool's 10,000 Days, but it's lack of style and grace is actually by design. Loud, obnoxious, bratty, and full of sneering attitude (just sculp the album's cover art) PM5K's latest offering is a distilled, highly concentrated dose of snotty rock and roll, hardly trying at all but somehow charming in its lack of depth.

Listening to Destroy is like watching a shallow, big budget action movie. Bad acting and an almost nonexistent plot can be forgiven once gunfire and explosions fill the screen. Like a 90s Bruce Willis movie, Destroy may be loud and dumb but it's fun in short bursts, like a roller coaster or a game of Halo.

All of the album's ten full songs are accessable and straightforward, leaving no room for subtlety or deep interpretation. From the bouncy power pop melody of Wild World to the frenetic punk rock influenced Walking Disaster (which sounds like it was written with The Offspring's Dexter Holland in the producer's seat), Destroy is a throwback to 3 chord riot rock acts like The Sex Pistols and Generation X. So bad it's good, Powerman 5000's latest disc continues the tradition of offering up loud, shallow hard rock that's fun to listen to...but not much else.

A new Powerman 5000 CD !? Tell me more!! Oh, so you say it strayed further from their sound on "Tonight The Stars Revolt" and "Anyone For Doomsday ?" ? Well, "Transform" was a good album so let us see for ourselves. I'm not sure why Spider felt the need to do the intro (and an intermission track), but that can be easily overlooked. A line in the first actual song, in a way sums up the entire album in "I used to be involved, but now i'm just bored". True that, Spider, true that. The title track finds itself with catchy hooks but a lackluster sound that feels very recycled from the last album. 'Return To The City Of The Dead' picks up the pace a little bit, but as you'll see that won't save it. Another track comes off fairly bland and easily forgettable. I'm sure someone out there will find this great, but unfortunately that person isnt me. Catchy hooks cannot save everyone. Next we have the lead single off the album, the one you bought the album for (Sure you did). 'Wild World' is probably the least interesting single the band has ever released (And I will even put it below the cuts from "Mega!! Kung Fu Radio", which this album makes look amazing). Im not sure why I have to be told that it is indeed a "Wild, Wild World" and that there is "Money to be made off someone elses shame". My blood is sure flowing now! 'Enemies' is up next, and sadly it is the best sounding song so far (I can ignore the little childish remarks he says after the overused line "But You Dont Understand Me Anyway"). It doesnt touch the last three albums, but it works. However, where will the album move from here ? The next track is the only song on the album that I can really say I like and if the band wants any chance of selling this disc, they should make it the follow-up single. 'Murder' moves very well and finds itself catchy as hell and it gives me some hope that the band isnt completely gone. 'Now That's Rock N Roll' is alright, but it fails to impress and will more than likely become another forgettable track. 'All My Friends Are Ghosts' holds up just as equally as the last track, and we're almost out of tracks for there to be a possible save. 'Walking Disaster', the next track, is basically a punk anthem for the disjointed teen. And now we're left with 2 actual tracks (and that silly intermission I told you about). The fairly funky 'Who Do You Think You Are ?' turns out to be alright, but once again unimpressive. The album ends on a fairly humorous note with the country tinged 'Miss America', which I did enjoy, even if only for the amusement factor. So, I dont know what there is to say. What happened ? Why didnt you just release "Anyone For Doomsday ?" and let it ride the wave of "Tonight The Stars Revolt" ? It wouldve more than likely worked. And then you couldve done "Transform" and you would be in a much better position to move around now, but you've basically dug yourself a hole that I dont see you ever pulling out of. I still like the band, and I will see them when they come around (hopefully they wont play too much off the new disc), but it might be high time to hang em up.

This cd is awsome dude.I wasn't that big of a fan of Tonight the Stars Revolt or Transform.But this is a awsome cd.I recomend this cd to people who like old school punk bands like the Sex Pistols.My Favorite tracks are Heros and Villains,Enemies,and Now Thats Rock 'N Roll.

Headline: Where We Last Left Our Favorite Anti-heroes...

Powerman 5000 had the type of music where if you were in a fight, if you were pretending, or if you just wanted to rock to the sound of apocalyptic fistpumps, their albums were for you. No matter how silly it may have sounded to you. Heck, no matter what Spider One says, their music was always the thing that could make me pay more attention to Manga or Anime cinema and shows on Cartoon Network. (Nevermind two of the best things being that they are Boston-based, and he is the brother of Rob Zombie.) And after the label Dreamworks was destroyed, still nothing has changed with the band at all.

Their album always started with spoken word to lead you through the album. All so you can enter an album that tries to straddle the line of punk and metal, eliminating Grunge but going down the road of Rock N' Roll, and a little bit of influence from his brother. "Construction of the Masses Pt. 1" starts off with what was supposed to be another spoken word intro, giving enough time for the title track to enter through the back with what sounds like a so-so Transform b-side, as well as an attempt to imagine anti-heroes turned from just that to fictional anarchist characters. And that is just the best way to enjoy their first single and their title track. "Return of the City of the Dead" wants to be the theme of a graveyard action cartoon that it takes lines like "God won't save you/`cause he don't care" to make you think of renegade corpses. If you aren't thinking of that, during the album, then this album won't sit well as an ordinary album for anyone. "Wild World" leans more to the punk side for the suburbans uninformed about the political side of every industry. This may be the most useless song to ever pass on a message we are just finding out, but none of them had ever mentioned "there's money to be made off of someone else's shame" and made us think so much about whether the industry has any shame.

"Enemies" is sure to be their fan's favorite fistpumper, with outsiders hanging on to every cynical word. "You can do anything from sea to shining sea/But you can't live without your enemies." And as if they were going to make a music video out of it, as a public service announcement, Spider says "The end" unexpectedly. "Murder" wants nothing more than Powerman to at least put out one more death-based anthem. "Now That's Rock N' Roll" gets down to the nitty gritty and introduces to you the theatrics (less) and the beloved energy, which holds quite high to get Spider's signature moaning in the bridge. "All My Friends Are Ghosts" screams anime influence, as the song that dismisses the "piety" only to hang with ghosts recalls clearly the benefits every antihero has had with ghosts and spirits.

For drunks and rock n' rollers, your anthem lies within one of their best songs "Walking Disaster", though those tipsy probably won't have the energy to keep up with his headbanger. "Who Do You Think You Are?" literally demands your attention as Spider sets up a conversation about a most unlikely subject: (the real) you. After that, the spoken word poetry "Construction of the Masses Pt. 2" originally ends the album, only to lead them to two potential b-side songs: one of them is a song without a trace of metal anywhere: the easily alienating and a song easily influencing fans to change the song (in fear of twangy guitars) "Miss America", and the gut-punching live performance of "Heroes and Villains".

Nevermind, that "Miss America" is the only soft song on there, and that no song has a feel than an ordinary rock show. But this album sticks right to the guns of PM5K: they wanted it to be the energy of metal and punk, and every song is as action-packed as we last left them. Expecting something like that? Then this album won't disappoint. If you aren't, than here's my only advice: you better get that Panic! At the Disco album before they take the last copy.

Rating: 7.25/10

Wow, I can't believe that so many people take the progress of a sci-fi industrial/nu-metal band so seriously.

Before I really get into my review, let me just say that before I bought this album, I only knew Powerman 5000 from "When Worlds Collide." I had not heard anything else by Powerman 5000, just that one song. That means that I'm coming here with an objective reveiw that, unlike most other reviews for this particular product, isn't based around "It doesn't sound like Tonight The Stars Revolt, and therefore sucks!"

A lot of people have been bashing this album really badly, and I don't understand why. Yes, its not the most intelligent music the world has ever seen, but since when did good Rock 'n' roll ever have to be smart? The reason why I love this album is simple: its loud, snotty, has tons of energy, and (most importantly) is filled with big, dumb hooks.

It also has a very old-school punk vibe to it, and in this day and age where 99% of punk bands suck out loud, its nice to see that someone still knows how its done.

Some highlights:

"Return To The City Of The Dead" -I saw them performing this live on Attack of the Show, and thats what convinced me to buy the album, its a killer tune as far as I'm concerned, so much fun.

"Enemies" -A Sex Pistols song, plain and simple. From the opening riff, to the snotty asides Spider tosses out after singing "But you don't understand me anywaaaaayyyyyy," right down to when it "ends with the honest-to-goodness sound of Spider making a fart noise with his mouth" (obviously a reference to Johnny Rotten making a similar fart noise with his mouth at the end of "EMI" for all those poeple who somehow didn't understand why he did that), this is a total old school, Sex Pistols influenced punk song, and it ROCKS!!!

"Now Thats Rock 'N' Roll" -Now that IS rock 'n' roll! This one is a total pump-up-the-crowd song, and man does it work! This one gets my "most likely to have you turn up your car stereo" award, because there's no way you can listen to this one quietly.

"Walking Disaster" -Yeah, the Whoa-oh's in the chorus do make it sound a bit Offspring-ish, but this sounds more like the Dead Boys sped up, or like Electric Frankenstien (who, coincidentally, sound like the Dead Boys sped up), but thats fine, once again, its a throwback to the days when punk still had a rock 'n' roll backbone (aka, the late 70's/early 80's). I love how this songs builds. It starts out intense, and just gets more and more crazy.

"Miss America" -A sarcastic, funny song attacking American culture (sample lyric: "Fat people in shopping malls/Meet me at the big and tall"), done Country/Western style in an obvious satire of all those cartoonishly patriotic country songs we've had the last couple of years.

Overall, a great, extremely fun example of what rock 'n' roll can be when a band throws away any pretensions and concerns of fitting into one particular subgenre and decides to just rock out. Only a bitter, joyless husk of a human being could listen to this thing and not have any fun at all with it.

If you're looking for a follow up to "Tonight the Stars Revolt," this is not it. But if you were looking for a good, heavy, rock 'n' roll album, you just found one.

This is a great cd for anyone who really is a fan of the continually changing powerman 5000. Some people only like "Tonight the Stars Revolt!", but I am a pm5k pretty much all the way. I like to listen to all the new kinds of music that they create... This is pretty much the route that the "Transform" cd was heading towards. Anyway, if you like some awesome rock (punk-ish?), get this cd!

When Powerman 5000 threw off their spacesuits on Transform, a lot of people just wrote them off for "abandoning their sound", which they did, but if you look back they made a smart move in doing so. PM5K had been wrongly lumped in with the NuMetal crowd, which was quickly dieing, and even though their music was better than most of the cookie cutter groups there were bunched with, the NuMetal moniker would have taken them down with the ship.

The switch came just as the album Anyone for Doomsday was to be released, which was quickly shelved. The album, which was actually pretty good, was more or less a sequal to Tonight The Stars Revolt. Spider admitted that the album was just a continuation of Tonight The Stars Revolt, and offered absolutely nothing new. It was for that reason that PM5K changed their look and sound and came out with Transform, a straight ahead rock album without pretenses (Scifi theme of Tonight The Stars Revolt).

PM5K's latest album, Destroy What You Enjoy, continues with the snarling straight ahead rock sound they started on Transform. The Billy Idol comparisons come quick and easy, especially with "Wild World", and a number of tracks feel heavily inspired by early punk bands like The Sex Pistols, but the band keeps an edge of their own throughout the album. The high point is definately "All My Friends are Ghosts", which really stands out among the punk/thrash/rock motif of the rest of the album. That's not to say the rest of the album is bad, as most tracks can hold their own.

The downfall of the album is the same as Anyone For Doomsday, it's just a continuation of the previous album (in this case, Transform). There's nothing entirely original compared to the previous outing, and there definately a few fillers (Miss America), which drags what would have been another great rocker down.

Overall the album is decent, and a cut above the latest batch of cookie cutter bands coming out, but the lack of originality and apparent fillers keep it from being great. If you're a fan of Transform, or a PM5K fan who didn't mind the change, then pick this one up. If you're looking for some straight ahead rock, at least give it a listen. If you still bemoan the change from Tonight The Stars Revolt, then just keep listening to that.

Okay, so this album has went further into the realm that Transform was going into. Its not quite as well done and songs like City of the Dead are lyrically pretty boring. However, this is no reason to discount PM5K. I just recently saw a small club show of these guys, and i didn't expect much after hearing a few of their new songs on the website and not expected to play much of the old. I was completely wrong, it was one of the best shows i have ever been too and they played all the old stuff including bombshell which i didnt expect because of Spider's dislike of Anyone for Doomsday. Even the new songs sounded good though. PM5K may not be making the greatest albums, and really the sci fi themes probably wouldn't be considered great. Their talent came from their ability to really get some energy going in the crowd. Its not the most lyrically intelligent music, but those guys really know how to rock a show. So if you think Powerman is done for and want to give up on them, find a show near where you live. You'll see they still have it, and it'll get you moving.

Let me start off by saying I love Powerman 5000's Tonight the Stars Revolt and the Anyone for Doomsday albums. The rockets and robots theme was original and the nu metal music was awesome. I even enjoyed the Transform album; it was different but still stayed in the realm of hard rock and had some catchy riffs. I was eagerly anticipating their next album. I especially drooled when I heard Heroes and Villains on their website as a teaser for their new album "Destroy What You Enjoy". But sadly that song is the best song on the album. You know it's like when you see a trailer for a movie and they only show you all the good scenes and when you see the movie you end up getting disappointed by it. Same feeling with this CD. I listened to the album for a good couple of weeks everyday to give it a chance to grow on me, which happens a lot of the time with other iffy songs but not with this album. I understand that Spider One doesn't want each album to be a cookie cutter of the next but gosh darn it why'd he have to go to an entirely different style of music? It seems like a waste of talent since their are so many Green Day ripoff bands and here we have Powerman 5000 that was so unique sounding, Spider One's awesome distinct voice and now tries to become another punk band? Now if you are into punk rock then rejoice! this album will be right up your alley. But if you are a Powerman 5000 fan of their nu metal rock then you will be very disappointed as I am. Sorry Powerman 5000 I loved ya but you've changed :^(

I really like this album, and I feel it's not getting enough love from most Powereman 5000 fans. Oh well, I like anyway.