CAPTAIN LOCKHEED & THE STARFIGHTERS

Here we have a great album by Robert Calvert and his cosmic friends. Both music and storyline are more sophisticated and serious than in an average Hawkwind album, maybe because Robert had more control over the production. I'm very allured by psychedelia and many other releases of these spaceheads, but this is just different kind of music than majority of their releases. The storyline of the record is political and related to the time when album was written, focusing to a case when German government bought jet fighters from the America. The purchased fighters were converted to unconventional operational military usage for saving money, which caused many accidents. I think this realistic theme is interesting subject for contrast of more abstract cosmic operas, though Hawkwind also has had political themes on their agenda. Between the music there are humoristic dialogues of German officials inspecting the army, businessmen doing trade with Americans and some excerpts from pilot conversations from a Starfighter cockpit. My own favorite tracks are the "Aerospace inferno" with nice pulsing rhythm and creation of moods, a really well rocking "Ejection" which was later also played by Hawkwind on stage, and definitely the end hymn "Catch a Falling Starfighter", which I found very touching conclusion. As a small funny detail, I noted Robert looks just like Bob Dylan in the photograph of the inner sleeve, fitting to the stance taking attitude of this neat album.