Powerglove - Metal Kombat For The Mortal Man

General Information

Original Author: Goliath

Artist: Powerglove

Album: Metal Kombat For The Mortal Man

Genre: Speed/power metal

Tracks

1. So Sexy Robotnik
2. Mario Minor
3. Fight On
4. Vanquish The Horrible Night
5. Blasting The Hornet
6. The Duck Grinder
7. Power. Wisdom. Courage
8. Omnishred (We're Gonna Need A Bigger Sword)
9. Holy Orders (Be Quick And Just Shred)
10. Metal Kombat For The Mortal Man
11. Red Wings Over Baron

Introduction

Powerglove is a very appropriate title for this band. The Power Glove was a NES controller that was nearly impossible to use, Powerglove is a band that covers music from antiquated video games, but is not impossible to listen to. Their tongue in cheek sense of humor with their song titles as well as their other album title “Total Pwnage” is a very strong indicator of the overall mood of this band. Their songs range from the 8-bit classics such as Mario, Tetris, and Zelda on into PlayStation modern classics, such as Final Fantasy 7, Guilty Gear X, and Mega Man X. Their high energy take on what was essentially midi files is very exhilarating and entertaining to listen to.

Now I know this blend of speed/power metal and video games is not for everyone and for some the novelty of this will wear off after a listen, but it really strikes a chord with me personally, as a large part of who I am is based off being a guitar nerd and a somewhat reformed video game nerd.

Music

Moving right along, the musicianship of this album is pretty impressive. I cannot speak much to their song writing abilities since they’re basically just arranging existing songs and embellishing them, but it’s done very tastefully. The technicality of the music the play is certainly demanding and they have good use of harmonics for accents as well as tasteful vibrato. My favorite song off of the album is “Holy Orders (Be Quick and Just Shred” from Guilty Gear X is easily my favorite, and I never was that big a fan of GGX. The song has that neoclassical feel to it with the high energy from the double bass. The harmonized parts in all songs (especially HO) are executed flawlessly. The drumming is very tasteful, with cymbal rides done tastefully and masterful double kick work.

The production value and recording quality for this album is shockingly high, considering the band is still technically an “indie” band. Of course, there are no vocals which seem to be the difficult part to capture in the recording process. I believe much of the guitar work is pulled straight from a PodXT Live (their myspace page mentions this a lot), which would be a testament to the quality of the Pod sound.

Final words

If you are one of the elder Gen Y-ers and had a similar childhood to mine of literally growing up in parallel with video games (when I was a kid they were more primitive than the average cell phone game), then you owe it to yourself to pick this album up off of iTunes, or at least purchase the songs “Holy Orders”, “Mario Minor”, “Power, Wisdom, Courage”, and “Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man”.

Check them out on myspace.