TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

Perhaps a more apt title for this long awaited ( at the time ) Hawkwind album would be " Hawkwind & Friends Go to a Rave". A disappointing Hawkwind effort despite a guest list of artists which include Lene Lovich and Arthur Brown. It sort of reminds me of the mediocre Alien 4 album from 1995 whose main theme was alien abduction whereas this time around it is a theme based on a cynical look at a grim future, after all this is Hawkwind.

The lead off is yet another lobotomized, updated and over-synthed version of Their classic Spirit of the Age with missing lyrics. It just doesn`t work at all and commander Brock probably included it because it worked into the proposed album theme, in fact the whole album seems to rely on too much boring synth soundscaping and simplistic techno-like drumming and not enough of the raw Hawkwind sound power that was present even up to the early 90`s.

A couple of points of interest though,(and there are very few) are Brock`s acoustic guitar work on " To Love a Machine" which is by far the strongest track on the album as well as Arthur Brown`s Hommage to late Hawkwind collaborator Rob Calvert. However, if synths and more synths turn your wheel by all means be my guest, but I can`t give this Hawkwind space excursion more than 2½ stars