LUCKY LEIF & THE LONGSHIPS

After the great "Starfighters" theme album, this Viking expedition to Vinland does not succeed very well in my opinion. Album starts with horn fanfares, leading to messy and tired sounding hard rock riffings. The melodies are guaranteed Calvert style, but there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm in the stuff. Along the trip we get Beach Boys resembling surf-pop pastiches, multivocal march hymns, stoned rockings not leading to anywhere, annoyingly echoed reciting reminding a poor Monty Python joke, and lots of jolly funky loungings in country music spirited melodies, all treated in a light Hawkwind-styled manner. Funnily named "Ragna Rock" (Ragnarök is the apocalypse of Viking sagas or something such boring) is the best track here, direly placed as the last song of a quite dull album, so it is possible the some fans never get it to the end and hear it (well, they do not miss terribly much even in this case). I would recommend this only to the Hawkwind completionists, at least listen trough it carefully before purchasing.