HAWKWIND

Capturing the band as they were deep in the creative process leading to their 2024 studio album Stories From Time and Space, this live show was also a gala celebration of 50 years of Space Ritual. They don't play through Space Ritual from beginning to end - they'd already done that exercise nearly ten years prior for the 40th anniversary! - but they do play chunky extracts from it, with friend of the band and fellow space rock pioneer Arthur Brown guesting to perform the poetry readings. The preceding setlist is a great tour through the Hawkwind back catalogue, as well as providing a sneak preview of material which ended up on the next studio album. On the whole, another wonderful entry in the band's extensive back catalogue of live releases.

The late 2000s were a bit of a fallow period for Hawkwind; in terms of their studio releases, they'd sort of puttered to a halt in 2005-2006ish with a couple of sub-par releases heavily dependent on old material (Take Me To Your Leader/Take Me To Your Future), and things didn't pick up there until 2010. In terms of live releases from the period, few distinguish themselves; Knights of Space is alright, and having Tim Blake present on keys is always pleasant, but this isn't much more than pleasant, if you see what I mean - it's a reasonable live set and I'm glad I've got it, but I can't see it seeing getting as heavy rotation as, say, Spaced Out In London, which was from five years prior and yet has a very similar lineup and track listing. There's a lack of energy and enthusiasm here, a sense that for a period Hawkwind were going through the motions, which thankfully they were eventually able to overcome.

In 2001-2002, Hawkwind played a number of gigs highlighting fellow space rock pioneer Arthur Brown as a featured vocalist. The Canterbury Fayre live set features one of these, and he's more heavily featured on the Out of the Shadows live release, documenting a December 2002 show. This live set documents another show from that period - just a few days separated from Out of the Shadows, in fact - and as with that show, it includes some cuts from Arthur Brown's back catalogue with the Crazy World and Kingdom Come, as well as Lighthouse from Tim Blake's solo career, due to Blake having reunited with the band at this point in time. Is it redundant with Out of the Shadows? Maybe a little, but when the band's this good I can't quite hold that against them.

Distant Horizons was an alright but not brilliant Hawkwind album from an era when their studio releases were kind of hit and miss, but Hawkwind have always been able to maintain high live standards even when their studio output has gone through patchy phases. Brock, Chadwick, Tree, and Richards do a fine job of blending the classic Hawkwind space rock style with more modern musical currents here; between this and Love In Space, the Distant Horizons album kind of gets upstaged by its contemporary live releases, and whilst I'd rate Love In Space above this, Hawkwind 1997 nonetheless offers another side of the story.

If you are newbie about Hawkwind... But who can be today about Hawkwind? (excuse the irony) "Master Of The Universe" is not a simple compilation but an attempt to serve you in 40 minutes the definitive Hawkwind album between 1971 and 1974. Can he do it? No... But because it's impossible. Nowadays it is difficult to categorize Hawkwind in a real genre as they have so many elements of Krautrock, Psychedelia and Proto Punk as well as Hard Rock all expertly mixed to create an original and not easily classifiable music. In short, for Great Britain, a unique band. Being a compilation (first released in 1977) "Master Of The Universe" is only good for a Hawkwind newbie or to be inserted into the CD player in a car.

Having said that I immediately note that the last track is "Lost Johnny", the one that Motorhead will rework on their first album (i.e. "On Parole") and in the first official album ("Motorhead"). for the rest they are classic Hawkwind compositions, minimalist in arrangements and hypnotic to the core. In a certain sense there is no band closer to Krautrock in Great Britain than Hawkwind. Hawkwind are a transversal band because they manage to please a really wide audience and not just a specific group and I like them for this very reason.

A compilation like "Master Of The Universe" can only deserve to be rediscovered (or discovered) if you love minimalist music and without too many frills. But it is not a masterpiece. Like all compilations it is not. It is just a way to discover an immense band. So do not put your money if you have everything of Hawkwind. And, honestly, let's face it: Long live Hawkwind.

This is one of the best Hawkwind albums, thanks to the gigantic You Shouldn't do That, a song that is difficult to describe due to the spacey Synthesizer Explorations, touches or jazz rock (with lots of sax improvisation) and some cacophonic repetitive sounds that create a very psychedelic effect. Not only that, the song lasts more than fifteen minutes, which was not so common in 71. Definitely, a true statement of the anarchic art of these fellows.

Besides that, the album features different things, with Master of the Universe being the closest to what would be known as the trademark Hawkwind sound, while You Know You're Only Dreaming and We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago are very spacey, but gentler and even a bit folkier, giving a nice flavor for the album, with it's different moods. It is like they were doing calm and contemplative counterpoints to the intense and denser songs of the album.

The band would still need some years to evolve to the more recognizable and polished sound of their mid and late seventies album that became their trademark sound. But X in Search of Space is a raw diamond that makes it one of the most interesting prog albums of 1971.

The general formula of the first three albums of British space rockers HAWKWIND was to deliver a pummeling series of guitar riffing with a bass and drumming intensity to match accompanied by slinking swirlies of synthesizers that offered a psychedelic whirlwind affects over a well established rhythm section. After three studio albums and a phenomenal live offering, HAWKWIND experienced a major shakeup in its lineup with the loss of Robert Calvert who stocked the band with an ample supply of creative poetic prose and lyrical brilliance including his spoken word interpolations. If that wasn't bad enough, long time synthesizer wizard and production pioneer Del Dettmar also jumped ship thus leaving HAWKWIND in a most awkward position - either reinvent itself or perish.

Well up to the challenges of the world of change, HAWKWIND emerged all the better for it with its fourth album HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL which took its inspiration for the title from the 1875 Edvard Grieg score titled "In The Hall Of The Mountain King." The new lineup featured Simon House who was a classically trained violinist and keyboard player and had played with both High Tide and the Third Ear Band. The new lineup meant a new chapter and the band expanded its musical repertoire with gusto. The album showcased a considerable expansion not only compositionally but sonically and creatively with the use of new instrumentation and a focus on more diverse tracks that allowed hitherto suppressed elements that were insinuated but never really fully explored to find a new lease on life and became a major aspect of the the new HAWKWIND sound.

Starting off with the exceptionally strong track "The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)" the HAWKWIND stylistic approach became much more song oriented with extremely catchy melodies and a less bombastic backing of the guitar, bass and drums. The music exhibited a more balanced feel between the uptempo rock aspects and a symphonic keyboard backing that also found moments of jazzy saxophone squawking, flute runs and oboe. While the general HAWKWIND rhythm section had stayed pretty much in tact, the sophistication of the composition was allowed to step things up a few notches with lead vocalist Dave Brock offering a more diverse vocal style and lyrically speaking the band did not suffer one iota from the loss of Robert Calvert's departure. Taking things in a totally new direction began with the second track "Wind Of Change" which shifted the focus on an ambient instrumental space rock section before breaking back into the more rock oriented "D-Rider."

The beauty of the album is how it alternates between the heavier rockers and the softer pieces such as the piano-based "Web Weaver" which tames the guitars into the backing piece of unpredictable psychedelia while a piano roll provides the main melody and the band engages in some beautiful vocal harmonies followed by some bluesy guitar soloing and all accompanied by the same synth swirls that the band had become synonymous with. While the band engaged in a total remake of its sound, tracks like the heavy hitter "You'd Better Believe It" kept the past firmly placed in the present with an emphasis on the Lemmy fueled guitar riffs and bass and drum action however this time around it also featured Simon House's exquisite violin playing emphasized rather than the spacey synths of previous releases. The title track tames it all down again with a short orchestrated classical piano piece before unleashing the boogie rock guitar riff heavy "Lost Johnny" courtesy of Lemmy who would later cover in Motorhead.

The album perfectly ends with the strange short ambient meets flute track "Goat Willow" followed by the extremely addictive rocker "Paradox" with its perfect chord progressions, bass groove and contrapuntal synthesizer parts. The vocals are also of classic HAWKWIND mode and provides the most satisfying conclusion to what many consider one of HAWKWIND's highlights of its career. HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL has always been a love at first listen sorta album but after time it really sinks and showcases how the band stepped everything up in the absolutely perfect way by keeping the album well balanced, by offering totally new aspects to the band's sound without jettisoning everything that came before. In the time of great change HAWKWIND displayed on their fourth album a phenomenal step up in maturity in terms of songwriting, compositional arrangement and instrumental interplay. This is perhaps my favorite of all their albums but the entire early 70s stock is so beautiful it's hard to pick on any given day. Any way you slice it this is a HAWKWIND masterpiece.

This new effort from Hawkwind is lush and beautiful. Very melodic and song based but with the typical space vibe. I feel similarities between this and the latest Agusa and Ozric Tentacles efforts. The new kids in Tangerine Dream did something similar with Edgar's music on the Quantum Gate and Raum efforts. The same here - recognizable but more polished and produced. Masterfully put together in the studio, dreamy and smooth but with some of the typical heavy driving bass. I enjoy their 70s stuff but that seems downright low fi and garag-like compared to this as far as production goes. Color me impressed. This is really smooth almost ambient at times yet clearly guitar driven space rock. Easily 4 stars. An excellent addition to any proghead collection for sure. No bad songs or filler at all and decent vocals too.

This is another compilation of tracks from the 2007 Live at the London Astoria concert that appears on Knights OF Space, Knights IN Space, and Live at the London Astoria on the streaming services. It is not found on the Cherry Red website, and a search shows it is on the Black Barn Music label. It can be downloaded from an obscure website, so I assume it is a bootleg, although the sound quality is pretty good. How should this album be rated? The performance and sound is the same as on the other authorized releases, and ordinarily as a Hawkwind fan I would rate it 4 stars. I see that two others gave it one star and another two stars, But due to its questionable provenance, I would recommend avoiding it in favor of Knights in Space, so one star from me.

As a longtime Hawkwind fan, I enjoyed this very much. It is more of a sophisticated chill out session than a rocker, and more in line with "It is the Business of the Future to Be Dangerous" (as Warthur also observes) and the Hawkwind Light Orchestra albums. Certainly quite spacey, beautifully recorded and played, with Dave Brock's jaunty perspective on things in his wise old age running through. If you want a good Hawkwind heavy duty space rock workout, their latest live album, "We Are Looking In On You" (2022) is the perfect complement. Also, I want to recommend the Hawklords albums from the last 11 years, which I hope Progarchives will someday admit to the sacred canon.