Palooka 5: MetroKino
LP | CD | DL
Out 29 August 2025
Impressed by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Palooka 5 push the sci-fi to the fore on their new album MetroKino.
Proper from their origins, Palooka 5 have blended their love of sci-fi and surf to nice impact. It got here collectively fantastically on their 2023 album Alien Grace, beamed in from Planet Claire and filtered via terrestrial freakbeat and jiving rhythms. Their toes could have been planted on terra firma, however it was clear that that they had their sights set on one thing altogether extra intergalactic. And that’s precisely the place we now discover them on new album, MetroKino.
Impressed by Fritz Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis, the band have considerably shed the shackles of their earlier, extra surf-inspired type to rocket headlong into house. The outcomes are actually one thing else as they’ve produced an album to immerse your self in, one to let wash over you.
Opening with the title observe, the synths and sparking guitar notes instantly conjure the picture of rising and falling rings of sunshine, the vocoder-laden vocals making it crystal clear that we’re already far past the reaches of Earth, removed from the now, in a world imagined. The tune floats by hypnotically, a delicate tractor beam drawing you in. However all is probably not what it appears, as they rapidly flip issues darker with the deep groove of Evil Machine. The spoken phrase supply operating below the music, a lovely vocal line operating via the refrain, once more obscured, a voice from distant house, sees the band aligning themselves extra with Jeff Wayne’s Struggle Of The Worlds than any Dick Dale-indebted band.
That mentioned, they nonetheless do have their moments. If the refined and gradual twangs beneath the floor of Evil Machine have been a precursor, they explode in full sci-fi surf impact on Give The Robotic Your Face as they mix splendidly their two sides. Throughout the opening three tracks, they set their star maps and lay out our route, a journey that takes us via the gorgeous spacelounge music of Moonstruck, the pulsating galactic-psych of Born In Berlin, and out via the despair of Cellars Of Hope.
Though a lot of the vocals function one other instrument, lyrics disguised via synths and vocoders, it’s Born In Berlin that breaks considerably from that mould, breaking the instrumental story to this point informed to floor us once more on this work of fiction as they pay homage to Metropolis actress Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm. Elsewhere, there are remoted strains that creep via, pique your ears to information you on their journey.
MetroKino is an enormous step sideways and ahead for Palooka 5, a courageous choice to eschew their typical surf-led sounds and delve, deeply, into one thing altogether totally different. Whereas they could nonetheless have retained prospers of their earlier work, particulars that sparkle sometimes beneath the floor, they’re clearly on an altogether totally different journey right here…and we’re most actually alongside for the journey!
Palooka 5 are on Fb
MetroKino is offered on pre-order from Spinout Nuggets
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Phrases by Nathan Whittle. Discover his Louder Than Struggle archive right here.
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