[engl] POW! is rechromed and ready to soundtrack your dystopian near future. Harsh neon synths keep battle with zipline guitars for space above a dark and teeming cityscape. Your guide is always in the shadows, you can’t make out his face but you hear his crazed diatribe as he wards off all affronts. The songs are at their core razor sharp punk, but are fleshed out with inventive and catchy synth work - and the floating bits of atmospheric expansion between tracks only serve to heighten the paranoid atmosphere. These tunes have a sci-fi depth, a moody bite, and a startling clarity sharpened to a point by the wizard hand of Chris Woodhouse, who helmed the magnetization. Recommended listening for future-punk teens and grown adults alike.

[engl] Just when we thought we knew what to expect from POW! they surprise us with a vigorous and rabid LPs worth of moody cybernetic punk that’s frankly their best yet. Their 4th is oil-dipped in a rainbowed slick of dread, yet the songs are buoyed by tight tunes that seem to have a lot of fun among the ruins of the future, dare I say with an eye to a less gloomy horizon? Melissa Blue’s sharp elbowed synths jostle with Byron Blum’s zap gun guitar in an ominous fog of oscillations, and yet somehow my toe is a-tapping. POW! got darker and more catchy at the same time, for which some credit is due to the excellent drumming of Cameron Allen and the fantastically future savvy production by Byron Blum & Tomas Dolas. Lots of sticky punk heart resin-layered in a futuristic-scanning bionic bop. For fans of Solid Space, Tubeway Army, The Units, The Screamers, and glittery black nail polish.