POWERMAN 5000 – Tonight The Stars Revolt!

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8.5

• Bands:
  POWERMAN 5000
• Duration: 00:39:14
• Available from: 07/20/1999
• Label:

• Dreamworks

Michael David Cummings was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1967, into a middle-class American family. He and his older brother Robert have an ordinary childhood, they attend art school and are fascinated by music, horror films and old TV series, which inspire them with a fervent creative spirit. We like to imagine how the eldest, who would become the lead singer of White Zombie taking the stage name of Rob Zombie, was the first to take all the horror toys, leaving his little brother to experiment with science fiction. In fact, Michael will also take the path of music with the nickname Spider One, founding and nurturing his creation called Powerman 5000. Both will also have a career behind the camera, but that's another story.
Powerman 5000's first album was released in 1995: “The Blood-Splat Rating System” is a good album with an original sound, which combines a cumbersome funk component with heavy metal, hard rock and rap. The style of vocalist Spider One was already distinctive then, moving with his low tone between sly and almost rapped parts and explosions of power typical of the alternative music of the 90s, anticipating the nu metal of Snot and Incubus. Songs such as “Organizized” and “Tokyo Vigilante #1” propel the success of the group, which arrives on the Ozzfest stage in 1996 and even appears in the popular TV series Beverly Hills 90210.
The band is now launched: the debut is reissued on major labels (with the title “Mega Kung Fu Radio”, as we still remember it today), and among other festivals and television appearances PM5K find themselves having to follow up the debut, with spotlight on you. The result is literally explosive, with a turn that will indelibly mark the history of the band: the group in fact stages a detailed theater of that poor but imaginative television science fiction made up of gimmicks and good will, keeping the groove of the first album and projecting it into a retro-futuristic sound full of electronics and sound effects. It's a silly and elementary formula, but taken care of in every detail with a true passion and years of dedication towards the source material, but above all it's crackling, bombastic and fun. “Supernova Goes Pop” and its hard rock and pleasant riff launch the listener into the stars in a pandering and cartoonish way, hitting the ground running with a memorable, elementary and contagious song.
The encore was served immediately with what is perhaps the biggest hit ever written by the band, “When Worlds Collide”: nu metal, dance, industrial and punk rock explode in an iconic and energetic chorus, which recovers the effects and cuts used by White Zombie in a farce of worlds colliding which, although it can be compared to shock rock, never hides the desire for pure fun, without high ambitions, comparable to an old and battered but fast and exciting, on which it is natural to want to take another spin. The trail of successes continues with another very successful single, the melodic and robotic “Nobody's Real”, this time slower but still nice and shabby, with a chorus built to be instantly memorable. It almost seems appropriate to give a break (the interlude “System 11:11”) because “Tonight The Stars Revolt” is the poker card, yet another single and yet another hit that will fill the tracks and will be remembered over the years, this time with some nice fat and round riffs that fit with the whispered cunning of Spider One, and then necessarily arrive at the fireworks.
It is undeniable that the rest of the album, while remaining at appreciable levels, fails to reach the iconic and generational perfection of the first songs, but “Automatic” follows the wave, “The Son of X-51” remains enjoyable with the its groove and the very thick bass line and “Watch The Sky For Me” raises eyebrows by mixing swing and synthesizers for a bizarre ending. The icing on the cake, tasty even if not at all decisive, are the featurings of Rob Zombie on “Blast Off to Nowhere”, Dj Lethal in the cover “Good Times Roll” and Ginger Fish in the final track.
For their funny aesthetics and unpretentious formula, and perhaps also for the cumbersome and inevitable comparison with Rob Zombie, PM5K have always been seen as a flash in the pan, a rock meteor on anabolics from 'MTV Generation', but “Tonight The Stars Revolt!” it's a very fun record that still sounds great today, obsessively embellished with a myriad of references and sound effects. It's probably also, in hindsight, essential listening for fans of industrial, nu metal and 90s alternative music.