Don't you hate it when a good band changes what they are known for and then fall way short? It's one of my pet peeves in music that I try my hardest to overlook. Sometimes it's just one bad album and the band's next release will be amazing. Sometimes though, it just plain sucks. Powerman 5000, why? Why would you do this? PM5K has been on the scene for a while now. They made it huge in the music world back in the 90's with the hit album Tonight the Stars Revolt!, which was arguably one of the most inventive pieces of the day. They guys in PM5K created an awesome spacey rock album and its main single "When World's Collide" is still a staple on rock radio. Sadly though after this CD PM5K went through many changes which led to their latest CD Destroy What You Enjoy.
After several line-up changes, an aborted album, and one meager album PM5K were in a tough place. Their last CD, Transform, sparked a revolution of changes. Gone were the spacey, almost gimmicky, alien rockers. The songs were genuine and proved that the band was more than that, but unfortunately they lost their way. Destroy What You Enjoy sadly does as it says, it destroyed what I enjoyed. The new addition of ex Alien Ant Farm axeman Terry Corso adds a great deal more to the songs sonically, however they aren't very good in the end.
The album sounds like the band sat around listening to the Sex Pistols and other assorted U.K. punk bands for a month straight. Whatever they did though was completely wrong. The songs sound punkish, but lack any dimension or originality. If there is a cookie cutter that makes punk sounding music, PM5K have found it and abused it. I love punk, especially 60's/70's U.K. punk, but this just pisses me off. The sounds are utter rubbish compared to what we can normally expect from PM5K. Really the only decent song on here is "Now That's Rock N' Roll". Of course it isn't Rock N' Roll, but musically it's still a tight song.
"Construction of the Masses Parts 1 and 2" are odd spoken word pieces with church organs in the background. I for one am not a big fan of pausing mid song to read some poetry, but it has some nice atmosphere to it. If you ever wanted to know what PM5K would sound like as a country band (I have no clue why you would though) you can check out "Miss America", though it's arguably one of the most annoying songs on the album. I wish I could recommend this album to someone, but it sounds nothing like any of their previous work. I always advocate change, but someone please tell PM5K to go back to being space age rockers.
