DISTANT HORIZONS

"...this must be space..!" and judging from the opening track "distant horizons", an upbeat space journey this will indeed be - sizzling synthesisers, soaring guitars, the sound of the surf, all you'd expect from a hawkwind album from the 90's, their 24th studio album ( a rare event in amongst all the live and compilation issues!), though overall something of a mixed box of tricks (a big improvement from their previous studio album "alien 4" which i found very disappointing). "phetamine street" crashes in with a heavy drum beat which dominates the track, with rather repetative lyrics. the sound of the waves following this come something of a relief, and fade into the beautiful "waimea canyon drive", a typical lush synthesised ambient sound that hawkwind do so well. "alchemy" is laden with synthesisers and has an amazing heavy guitar riff, very much the style of early hawkwind, and is followed by my favourite track "clouded vision", a slow doom-laden song .."what lies in store for me..?". "reptoid vision" which has a style reminiscent of late 70's style hawkwind, my least preferred song on this album, though it improves as it goes along, and drifts into "population overload", i love this , it sounds very similar to the style of ambient music on "electric tepee", it wouldn't surprise me if this was an outtake from that album. "wheels" is very much typical heavy riffing/soaring synthesised sequenced fx hawkwind music we all know and love, the next track "kauai" is an amazing orchestrated piece using layers of synthesisers, the waves drift along until the sound of mutterings and broken glass introduce "taxi for max", an instrumental which is dominated by synth/sequenced percussion and bass,and drifts into the final track "love in space" , well i assume it does, as track no.11 didn't appear on my cd player interface! i understand "love in space" had vocals added on later releases but there are no vocals on my 1997 version. overall i found this album very enjoyable, it's supposed to be rare but i often see it on ebay for several pounds. i found the sound quality of this cd ever-so-slightly veiled or even a bit muddy in places, but nevertheless well worth adding to your hawkwind/prog collection, if you enjoyed "electric tepee" an essential addition, and i say underrated in my opinion.