DOREMI FASOL LATIDO

Their previous album saw Hawkwind "In Search of Space"; here the band achieved escape velocity and finally left the Earth behind. Ian Kilmister (aka Lemmy) was aboard; so was new drummer Simon King, completing what some fans would consider the classic Hawkwind team, in a collection of "ritualistic space chants, battle hymns, and stellar songs of praise" (quoting the narrative credits on the LP's ultra-cosmic back cover).

The newly christened 'musicnauts' were also coming under the influence of cult novelist (and longtime comrade) Michael Moorcock, adding elements of heroic fantasy to their sci-fi thematic arsenal, just in time to ride a nerdy upsurge of interest in sword-and-sorcery gaming around the same time. From the quintessential momentum of the album opener "Brainstorm" through the compelling void of "Space Is Deep", to the world-weary stoner pessimism of "The Watcher" (a Lemmy original, arranged with surprising acoustic understatement), this was where Hawkwind really took wing.

Too bad the sound is so bloodless: a common complaint for a lot of rock music in the early 1970s, but doubly unfortunate for such a muscular outfit (Simon King would later say the album "lacked production", and according to Lemmy "it was just not very well recorded"). "Space Is Deep" survives as the band's first true masterpiece, summing up the entire Hawkwind experience is six awesome, interstellar minutes. But the labored improvisational padding in "Time We Left This World Today" needed a live audience (or a lot of pharmaceuticals) to work properly.

The same music just doesn't soar as high as it would on the upcoming Space Ritual tour. But, hindsight aside, this was still the first fully-fledged Hawkwind studio album: a sonic manifesto carved in rough Ladbroke Grove metal.

(...consumer alert: later CD bonus tracks increase the album's value by adding the notorious "Urban Guerrilla" single and it's hard-rockin' B-Side "Brainbox Pollution", plus other rarities from the early Hawkwind closet.)