Look, if you’re not already bleeding from the ears, you haven’t turned “Powered Up” loud enough. ADAM Music Project has kicked down the gates of your serotonin receptors and stomped on the accelerator with this turbocharged, genre-warping tribute to all things pixelated and primal. This isn’t just a song—it’s a neural overload, an 8-bit aneurysm that explodes out of your speakers like MegaMan mainlining Ministry and punching a hole through the PlayStation console.
You want subtlety? Go read a James Taylor record review. “Powered Up” is a bottle rocket jammed into your cerebral cortex, lit with the kind of fury that made Trent Reznor relevant and gave Atari kids wet dreams about robot apocalypses. It doesn’t just honor the MegaMan franchise—it rips it from the cartridge slot, gives it a chrome exoskeleton, and throws it into the mosh pit at a Nine Inch Nails concert circa 1994. It’s industrial thrash rock with acid-washed techno bark—like Rob Zombie hijacked Daft Punk and challenged Skrillex to a boss battle.
There’s this beautiful chaos to AMP—the band, not the volume (although that too)—like they raided the backstage of a Capcom convention and fused everyone’s angst, caffeine addiction, and controller-throwing fury into a sonic Frankenstein. And who’s holding the lightning rod? Adam DeGraide, mad doctor of melody, cyberpunk preacher of plug-in prophecy. He didn’t just create a band—he detonated a musical universe. With Dameon Aranda riding shotgun, DeGraide has managed to stitch together a circus of talent into a singular pulse-pounding, joystick-jamming force of nature.
Let’s talk personnel—because AMP isn’t your average ego-driven four-piece. It’s a rotating cast of gifted misfits, freaks, and warlords of riffage. Gabe Aranda, Lacy Saunders, Macie Cantrell, Hartleigh Buwick, Myra Beasley, Joel Driskell, and Adam Aguilar—each one stomping onto the track like a playable character with their own special move. Jay Gleason’s guitar solos melt the motherboard. Jeff Hall’s drumming feels like a CPU overheating in real time. And those vocals? Imagine getting roundhouse-kicked by a choir of boss-level banshees.
And yeah, I know—another band “inspired by video games.” Spare me. But this time it’s not kitsch, it’s communion. AMP doesn’t just reference gaming—it weaponizes it. “Powered Up” is the sound of nostalgia turned militant. It’s every moment you died in-game, screamed in real life, and hit continue with pure defiance.
The band’s already racked up millions of streams, which makes sense because their sound is the audio equivalent of mainlining adrenaline. They’ve lit up radio with “Punch Out” and are now touring with Aranda and The Founder, which is like throwing gasoline on a circuit board and calling it a soundcheck.
So here’s your warning: this isn’t background music. It’s foreground warfare. ADAM Music Project didn’t come here to play—they came here to dominate. “Powered Up” is more than a song. It’s an anthem for the glitch-hearted, the joystick-jaded, the pixelated punks and headphone heretics. Plug in. Turn up. Melt down.
And if Dr. Wily gets his hands on this track? We’re all screwed. But we’ll go down headbanging.
Check them out on Social Media and find out where they are on tour!
You can find their upcoming tour details here.
–Leslie Banks
