CAPTAIN LOCKHEED & THE STARFIGHTERS

This is Robert Calvert's first and best solo outing. The album takes its inspiration from a scandal in Germany in the late 1950s, where the Government purchased many new Lockheed Starfighter jets, only to have them kill off many of their young pilots who dubbed the jet "Widowmaker".

The album is an excellent fusion of comedy sketches and music which is similar to some of Hawkwind's material such as 'Silver Machine' or 'Urban Guerrilla', (not surprisingly both were co-written by Calvert). Some of the sketches in between music can be nothing short of hilarious if your sense of humour leans towards the likes of Monty Python. Musical highlights for me are "Aerospaceage Inferno" and "Catch a Falling Starfighter", both of which display Calvert's taste for irony, with lines such as "Fly through sound like a circus hound/Through the burning hoop with just one bound/So not even your ashes will be found/What a good way to go..." Scary stuff!

Anyway, it's an excellent album and is highly recommended to those of you who would like to listen to something with a sense of humour once in a while, and those of you who enjoyed 'Silver Machine' and would like more from the same bizarre mind.