ROAD TO UTOPIA

Hawkwind do the "unplugged" idea, whipping out acoustic takes on their old material. When some bands do this, magic can happen - Marillion, for instance, were able to tease out new levels of beauty in already sensitively-composted songs in their occasional experiments in this vein. Hawkwind, however, have pretty much always been about electronic space rock cyber-rock futurism. The overall effect of switching their songs to this style is to make it come across as a novelty album - fun, amusing, but clearly not how these songs were intended to be heard, and the treatment here doesn't yield alternate versions which have their own distinct charm. Once you get past the amusement value of hearing them in this style, it palls quickly.