Review Summary: Powerman 5000 delivers us their own take on many classic songs, but do they succeed in making them sound good?
Powerman 5000's sound has been becoming more and more electronic with each album, and it keeps going with this one. "Copies, Clones & Replicants" has an almost overwhelmingly electronic style to it, and I must say, it's pretty good. I love the combination of the bleeps and bloops with the industrial metal guitars and drums. It combines surprisingly well. The only problem, as I stated before, it's a bit overwhelming. Many songs sounds almost techno-esque and have very few metal elements to them.
Anyway, "Copies, Clones & Replicants" is a cover album consisting of many classic songs that many of your should be able to recognize. The songs range anywhere from the 60's to the 80's. The recognizable soundtrack is a great plus for the album.
Powerman does a good enough job with each of the covers, and some of them are extremely well done. Most notably "Space Oddity" originally done by
David Bowie. This is simply a beautiful cover. Incredibly done music which features some of the only acoustic parts on the album, and Spider One delivers some very impressively meaningful sounding vocals. Every part of the song reminds you of space and it is my favorite track on the album.
Other notable covers include "Whip It" originally by
Devo which has a great catchy sounds, that makes you just want to get up and dance. "Electric Avenue" is another one of my favorites. Another great dancing tune and another awesome vocal performance by Spider One.
There are a few covers that I didn't find very impressive though. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" was one of these. I found it to be too quiet and had very little metal elements at all. It was almost completely electronic. "Pop Muzik" was just awful to me. I can hardly consider this rock. I know the title of the song is "POP Muzik" but it was very out of place on this album.
Overall, PM5K succeeded in adding their own sound to classic tunes. While there are a few duds, they don't kill the album. This is certainly worth picking up, especially if you are fans of the original versions of these songs, or if you're a fan of Powerman 5000.
Score: 3/5.
Notable Tracks:
Space Oddity
Whip It
Electric Avenue
