Hands up, who still actually listens to Powerman? True, they had a massive hit in 1999 with “When Worlds Collide,” but they quickly fell off both musically and in popularity. One of the more forgotten records of 2020 is the new Powerman. Down to one original member, frontman Spider, the band has changed their sound a bit over the years. What was once very spacey and sci-fi oriented has now transformed into a New Wave/proto-goth sound that is basically hit-0r-miss. The fact this album is only half an hour shows how difficult it is to get things really moving and exciting enough to fill out a whole disc.
The album is only about 10 songs and has one true standout, “Black Lipstick,” a song that is probably the best thing the band have done in years and is in line with something Peter Murphy would have done circa 1990 – and it just happens to actually sound good. Other songs like “Special Effects” and “Brave New World” are just very boring and don’t bring anything new to the table. They just kind of sit there and do nothing. Opening track “Cannibal Killers That Kill Everyone” and “Let the Insects Rule” are pretty decent and prove that not all nu-metal bands have withered up and completely dried out.
All in all, this is a decent release from a band that’s almost 30 years old. It’s far from being among the best of the year, but songs like “Black Lipstick” are enough to still make this band more significant than some of the other wannabes and also-rans/has-beens that are still making new music. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the trash cover of “We Got the Beat,” the album might score a bit better but some covers are just unnecessarily uncalled for. But it’s still not a terrible record.
