X IN SEARCH OF SPACE

When we talk about space rock the first thing that comes to mind for most people is that more atmospheric side of the genre, say bands such as Pink Floyd or Ozric Tentacles, but not often do we hear about the more experimental, jammy, psychedelic, and krautrock influenced side of the space rock coin. Bands such as 35007, Far East Family Band, and even Gong are such bands that have influenced and evolved through the space rock formation. Though, it would be a shame to not talk about one of the bigger, more underground, and more enriching bands that are Hawkwind.

Formed in the late 60s by Dave Brock, Mick Slattery, and Nik Turner, they've been around for a long, long time, with an album output of mostly every year or so since their debut album. This band and I have a strange history. To me their album output can be very mixed, with some albums I think working well, but some others I feel are mediocre. With such a big discography it is to be expected to find some duds here and there, but I feel like with Hawkwind they can never seem to be truly amazing, but never truly terrible either. They are strange, and hypnotizing, but very easy to break out of their grasp when you feel like it. I have tried to get into them, but I never seem to fully get into their music, no matter how many albums I have heard from them. My thoughts are out of the way, this is their sophomore album after their considerable mediocre first effort, here they fully embrace their jammy, space rock side of things they'll be highly known for in their career.

How the album starts with a jam session named You Shouldn't Do That, which takes up most of the first side. Considerably it is a 15+ minute epic that goes for that more psychedelic enriched krautrock flavors, with a tiny bit of jazz-rock influence. To me, this song does capture the adventurous and wild side of space travel, and it succeeds in the aspect of how bouncy and wild it is. The guitars and saxophones mesh well with one another, and I find myself grooving along with all of it in some form or another. Despite being 15 minutes it never feels too long or repetitive. If I had to give a modern example, it'd be The Dripping Tap by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. That song is 18 minutes long and in itself is a jam session, however, it never feels too long or arduous to listen to. This is the same feeling I get for this song, the momentum and how it all meshes well together no matter what makes it a great song. The album's highlight.

However, after this point the album dips in value for me with You Know You're Only Dreaming. I do like how the guitars and drums create a more structured environment and how the flutes in the back continue the more thematic space apparel the band would be very known for, however, I feel like it never goes anywhere with the idea of what they want to do. Hawkwind, for me, has a problem where they create a good setup, but never fully create a good execution. With the last song, it was fine since it was truly a jam session, something where a golden ending would be obtuse, but with this song, I would love to have some kind of payoff, since it by every aspect of how it has a good start, it should have a good finish, especially when the song isn't a jam session and more of just a regular song. I bet with this sound they'd make their dues with bigger payoffs, but for what it stands they missed out a bit on this song.

I will say though that Master Of The Universe does make up for You Know You're Only Dreaming with a more structured, and rewarding song. I think with this song they are truly at their A game. The guitars are crisp, the drums are sound, the bass is lush, the saxophone is weird but good, and the space sounds in the back help add to this track. My main issue with it however is Dave Brock's vocals. I never really liked Hawkwind for their vocal arrangements, they aren't awful by any means but I much prefer their more instrumentally sound works than ones where the key feature is the vocals, which they rarely have luckily but even then I still am not a fan of them in that regard. I find his voice to be very monotone and doesn't reflect on the fun-filled music here, which creates a rather poor flavor to this otherwise good song. It is like, say you are trying a new cookie you got from the store. The bread is good, it's nice and soft but has a good crunch to it, and it is very sugary and sweet. It's good, right? Well, sadly there are also raisins and pretty mediocre raisins at that. This metaphor fits into most songs by Hawkwind, a good cookie but it has mediocre raisins in it.

To allow the two sides of the album to be different from each other, side two is more acoustical in style. As you can expect due to this and a lack of focus on most of the more electrical instruments with a softer sound and a distinctiveness in the vocals, you might think I would hate the second side of the album. Well, that isn't entirely true, but I still do not like the vocals, but I do think they fit better with a more soft psych rock sound. For example the song, We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago. The more folk arrangements do let the vocals fit more in with the song's mood and atmosphere, but still retain the more fun-filled nature this album all around has. I gotta give credit where credit is due, the band does know how to maintain their more jovial attitude.

While every song I have given at least some praise to, I just cannot with Adjust Me. Where in some parts of songs you can hear a tiny bit of a krautrock sound, here we are fully delved deep into that more avant-garde side of the spectrum. With bands like Faust and Neu where that avant-garde music works well, here I think they fall flat in the mud. It is not fun to listen to, which is a strange thing to say about a Hawkwind song, but it is not interesting either, which is also strange to say about avant-garde music. I can tell this song has inspired a bit more of the weird, and trippy side of psych and space rock, especially with the vibrating guitars and keyboards, but even then I cannot help but think this song was a huge misstep.

Though, despite this misstep, the album does end fairly well with Children Of The Sun. It takes a page from We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago by being a more acoustic song, but it does blend a bit more of that space rock stylization from their other songs. With this, I'd say it ends the album on a pretty good note. The acoustics are all well mixed, and the flute playing here does build more into that nice atmosphere. I am still not a fan of Dave's vocals, they could be so much better even if they fit into this song.

So at the end of the day, this album is pretty alright. I do like a good deal of the songs here and I think the fun moments here can be plentiful. The issues I have with this album though are also plentiful, and I think they make the album suffer more than it should. It's an album that I think, at the end of the day, is pretty much ok, but I do see it as an important look at that more fun-filled, and jammy side of space rock that we don't hear from many people nowadays.