ATOMHENGE 76

To Me this is a five star album, but then anything hawkwind do to me is five stars they are just head and shoulders above every other band and despite what people think they are prepared to take bold and adventurous steps with their music.

Atomhenge is a live recrding of one such bold step. The band had just parted company with lemmy and had reinstated Robert Calvert this time as lead vocalist and instead of long space rock jams a more structured song basis emerged.

Thhis Cd starts with "instrumental" which is basically the band taking to the stage and warming up before the epic Reefer madness, Calverts tale of the evils of canabis, before Dave Brock plugs the riff of paradox, a song they have reinterperated on their last few tours. Paradox is a throwback to the halcyon spacerock days of Doremi and Hall of the Mountain Grill all it misses is lemmy's menacing bass.

Chronoglide Syway, the instrumental follows and features some fluid guitar work and just when you are feeling comfortable the band power into Hassan I Sahba, again a song updated by the band on recent tours (and now incorporates the beautiful Space is Their Palestine from the IITBOTFTBD album). Here the band on a major tour are introducing a song which would not feature until 1976s Quark album (a bold step).

The power and glory of Hawkwind in full flight is maintained with the ultra heavy spacerock pic of Braintorm, with Calvert's vocals making this menacing and pleading at the same time.

Wind of Change follows and the slo melodic start leads us again to a major uplifting instrumental where the guitar leads with soaring licks and riffs.

The second Cd opens with a brief jam before the riff of Steppenwolf is picked up and the band join in on Calverts tale of a manwolf wolfman.

Uncle Sams on Mars is next, again a new track that featured on the tour but would not appear until the PXR5 album, next up is a real treat the only known release of Time for Sale and Calverts word play comes into his own, a ten minute spacerock ramble which was never recorded on any studio album, this is worth the price of the cd alone.

Back on The Streets , the future boogie single is next showing that the band could still rock.

Sonic Attack is revisited and although not my favourite version, that goes to the 1999 party, this is still clasic hawkwind.

The band wrap up the gig with their current single Kerb crawler.

Not an essential album and as its recorded off the sound desk not the best ound but it does give a rather interesting glimpse into the Hawkwind of 1975.