HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL

This must I say is a solid rock album with great material. This is sophisticated raw material. Hawkwind's fourth album "Hall of the Mountain Grill" from 1974 is not weird in my opinion, it could have been weirder but it really rocks. Dave Brock (vocals, guitars, organ, synthesizers), Del Dettmar (Keyboards, kalimba), Simon House (violin, mellotron), Lemmy Kilminster(bass, vocals, guitars), Simon King (drums) and Nik Turner(sax, oboe, flute, vocals) do a great job with the instruments. This is my first meeting with Hawkwind so I don't know "how to listen correctly" but I can hear nice accents, violins, saxes and some spacy sounds in a very raw hard rock music. It's absolutely not symphonic prog but another side of this heaven.

My favourite track here is "Wind of Change" which starts very soft and spheric and takes speed in the middle where the great melody starts. "The Psychedelic Warlords" directly shows a sweat music with many layers and short "Goat Willow" and "Paradox" are other favourite tracks. This effort has no weak moments so I will absolutely listen again. The music's rawness is unique because it's absolutely not metal or just hard rock. It seems to have been inspired by Krautrock bands but also pure rock'n'roll. It has an interesting sound I am not very familiar with but I think I want to explore it more now.

Best tracks: Wind of Change, The Psychedelic Warlords