Every time a new Powerman 5000 album arrives, I stop and think: "those guys are still around?" Do not get me wrong, I love them but they're not what you'd call prolific. On the other side of that coin, whenever a new album arrives they always manage to knock it out of the park. None of them really reach the land of the classic, but they are always eminently listenable and invite you back time and time again. Not only that, they all tend to have different sounds coming from the same distinct voice.
Speaking of that distinct voice, I wonder when Powerman 5000 will finally admit it is really just the Spider show? It seems there is significant turnover with the band's lineup in between each album. Why this seems to happen so often I do not know. Although, I will hazard a guess that it has to do with Spider's desire to head in different directions and not replicate what he has done before.
The desire to not repeat himself goes all the way back to what is arguably their biggest album. Tonight the Stars Revolt! That was released in 1999. The followup was slated for Summer 2001, but mere weeks before it was to come out Spider decided he did not want the follow up to sound so similar. The album, Anyone for Doomsday?, was canceled. A few of the band members left and they went back to the drawing board, releasing Transform in 2003. The album is a solid hard rock album and very different than what came before it.
Here we are in 2009 and Somewhere on the Other Side of Nowhere is here. It is step up from 2006's Destroy What You Enjoy (which was very much in the same vein as Transform). This new album strikes me as a cross between their current run of straight up hard rock and their electronic influenced past. At the same time it sounds fresh and just begs to be turned up loud!
The album opens with "Intelligent Creatures." It is brief intro of tones that sound like they are straight out of an old school Italian horror movie. This gives way to guitar noises and some rapid fire drums as we kick into the hard rocking "Show Me What You Go," a song that begs for audience participation. I can almost see the crowd bouncing to this one with hands raised high.
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