Powerman 5000 - New Wave album review

Industrial metal diehards hang on long after the party’s ended

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Cover art for Powerman 5000 - New Wave album

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Powerman 5000 are 26 years into a career that has seen them arrive at the release of this, their ninth album. Which makes their absolute inability to learn any new techniques, improve their songwriting or grow as songwriters or musicians in any way pretty astonishing. New Wave is yet another album of stomping, industrialised party metal, that at best is all a bit dated and trite, and at worst is desperately dunderheadedcack that makes Five Finger Death Punch sound like Devin Townsend. So SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“5185b133-c70d-4f20-b86f-0d23fef68e76” id=“9f0e42be-114e-43be-ae47-354fbe58c9bb”>Cult Leader is dopey, but annoyingly catchy, while No White Flags is a po-faced ballad that wouldn’t sound out of place being sung by Jack Black on a Tenacious D album. Its biggest crime, though, is the woeful David Fucking Bowie, which may have been conceived as a tribute but will only succeed in making the late, great artist spin in his grave like a tombola. Go away now.

Stephen Hill
Stephen Hill

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.