2014, should we reach it (in which case we can thumb our noses at those Mayans! Yah! Up yours, long dead civilisation! If you're so smart how come you're all dead?) will be the forty-fifth anniversary of Hawkwind. That's right: the band which gave us Lemmy and set up more trips than a whole fleet of trains and buses during festival season is fast approaching their half-century, an amazing milestone for any band, much more so for a band who are so, well, how can I put this? Weird.
It's fair to say Hawkwind are not to everyone's tastes. I've never been high (unless you count my few trips in a jet airliner) in my life, though I'm reliably informed that to really appreciate this band you need to be stoned. I do remember going to see them in 1984 and being almost choked by the aroma of "freaky" cigarettes, so much so that I remember very little of the gig --- possibly high on second-hand smoke? Nevertheless, despite being what most Hawkwind fans would deem a square, or whatever epithet they choose to hang around the necks of those who “don't, sorry”, I have enjoyed Hawkwind albums. “Levitation” was a great record, as was “Masters of the universe” (okay, so it's a collection: what about it?) and even the eminently weird “Church of Hawkwind” had me nodding appreciatively, when I wasn't shaking my head in miscomprehension.
This is their twenty-fourth studio album, taking purely into account those only: this says nothing of the many compilations, live albums, retrospectives etc that have hit the shelves over the last thirty-odd years. Lemmy, of course, is long gone, but founder member Dave Brock, the brains and heart of Hawkwind, is still here, going as strong as ever, and though he has a good twenty years on him, Richard Chadwick is the next most permanent member, having occupied the drumseat since 1988. Most of the rest of the band have only been with Hawkwind since the first decade of this century, although keyboardist Tim Blake has been with them on and off for short stints in the seventies and the first years of the second (or is it third? I always get confused...) millennium.
Onward --- Hawkwind --- 2012 (Plastic Head)
It doesn't matter if you've heard every Hawkwind album since their debut in 1970 (which I haven't, far from it), it's always going to be hard to predict what you're going to come across on a new outing from them, whether it's space rock, acid rock, prog-rock, psychedelic metal, proto-metal-space-fusion-jazz-ambient-futurist-rock, or insert-genre-plus-as-many-sub-genres-as-you-wish in this space. Hawkwind are a band that have continually defied categorisation over the decades, and while one album could be fairly close to what most of us would consider “normal” rock, another could go way out on some space-opera acid-fuelled tangent which bore no resemblance to the previous album. One thing you are always guaranteed though is that it will be different, and interesting.
This album in fact comes on two discs (at least, the copy I have does), the first of which starts off with humming synth, doomy pealing bells before guitar blasts in and “Seasons” opens the album, Dave Brock's voice as powerful now as it was in 1970, the usual crazy space-rock effects Hawkwind aficionados have come to expect fizzing everywhere, but the guitar hard and heavy. The vocals and backing vocals are strongly reminiscent of Floyd, and of course the two bands were around at about the same time, though they went off on somewhat different tracks. There is a lot of similarlity between the two though. This is a little heavier than I would expect Hawkwind to be, but it's very welcome, and only the first of eighteen new tracks, so a treat in store?
Well, things stay heavy for “The hills have ears”, with an almost punk-rock sound about both the hard guitar and the singing, though the fizzling, sweeping synth in the background keeps this track firmly grounded in prog/psych land, everything in fact quickly fading down after a punchy beginning to allow the synth to take centre stage as weird little space-rock runs, odd sounds and effects all too familiar to those who have followed this band down through the years take over, then the guitar kicks back in and the music is rocking again, then “Mind cut” is a slow, acoustic guitar extravaganza with electric in the background and Brock's almost sixties-style psychedelia vocal bringing us right back to the summer of love, almost like smashing out of a black hole into a totally new universe.
Just over a minute long, “System check” is one of those
intermezzos used so often by Hawkwind, with NASA-style reports and messages over spacey synth, then “Death trap” goes back to the rocky sort of song I've heard from them before, like the title track to “Levitation”, one of the few of their albums I've heard, a real cars-racing-down-the-highway song with some good vocal effects and some hammering guitar before we head into “Southern cross”, with some bongo-style drums and rising keyboards, like some sort of bastard son of Vangelis and Santana, entirely instrumental and really laidback in fact, another string to Hawkwind's mighty bow.
Back to hard straightahead rocking with an almost eighties new romantic twist for “The prophecy”, banks of keyboards providing the soundscape while guitar lays down its own groove upon this, and Brock sings like some lost poet or visionary trying to find his place in the new world. There's another short interlude in “Electric tears”, which starts on xylophone-like chimes then pulls in strings and guitar, all in less than a minute. Impressive. Well, for any other band, that is: this is just standard for Hawkwind, though no less to be praised, just expected. The squealing guitar continues, taking us into “The drive by”, with some fine drum work from longtime member Richard Chadwick, bright, breezy synth from Blake in another instrumental to close the first disc. Certain elements of Harold Faltermeyer or the Art of Noise on the synthwork here, though of course Hawkwind were doing this before those guys were even in long pants!
Disc two starts off on the heavy, gothic “Computer cowards”, with a vocal from Dave Brock that's hard to make out, almost subsumed within the music, as if he's drowning in it. Great bassline from the enigmatically-named Mr. Dibs drives the song, Brock evincing almost gutteral vocals, but sort of muttered: strange mix. Some great guitar work though, very little in the way of keyboards on this, ending on what sounds just like one of those old gas kettles boiling --- anyone remember them? If you're as old as me you will --- then it's synthery ho! as we head into “Howling moon”, another atmospheric instrumental, with Brock's guitar almost acting as a metronome, until with the odd sound of howling wolves we're taken into another straight rocker, “Right to decide” riding on the guitar line which is simple but effective, swirling keys and Brock's voice routed through some sort of vocoder or modulator to make it sound echoey, the song tripping (ahem!) along at a great pace with a really nice guitar solo adding to the many hooks in this song.
“Aero space age” is surely a typical Hawkwind song title, and this track is almost a continuation of “Right to decide”, but based more along the piano and keyboard lines of Tim Blake this time. They even namecheck with a cheeky grin their biggest commercial hit, with the lyric
”The silver machine is worth/ More than you're worth”: possibly a dig at those who only know them for that single? Very spacey song, great synth work, and yes, in places it
is reminscent of the song itself. The longest track on the album comes in slowly, something of a slowburner then again emulating the great Carlos as “The flowering of the rose” rides along on boppy organ, screaming skittering guitar and swirling synth (yeah, I know that's a lot of alliteration...)
Is it going to be another instrumental? Well, we're about four minutes into its eight-minute-plus length now, and so far no vocals, just a real workout on the keys and guitar, steady rhythm section holding everything together in a fine uptempo progressive rock piece. Yeah, it's an eight-minute powerful, energetic instrumental all right, and it leads into another track whose title is just so Hawkwind. “Trans air trucking” starts off with a lot of mixed sounds --- phone message, growling, machinery --- then powers into a Vangelis-like fast synth run, running into a quick, thirty-second insert on heavy, ominous synth with spacey effects which then takes us into the penultimate track, a slow, heavy, Floyd-like piece called “Green finned demon”, some really inspired fretwork from Brock and a Watersesque vocal.
In typical Hawkwind fashion, the closer is not titled. At all. In fact, in some reviews of this album they only show seventeen tracks, not eighteen, but the one that finishes this two disc set is like something out of “Sonic attack”, with a big busy guitar sound, whooshing synth and Brock's vocal not sung but spoken, like poetry, as he pilots his own personal starship across his own personal and unique galaxy, heading for who knows where? It's a real lookback to the Hawkwind of old; whereas much of this album is almost normal, as such, this is much more weird, spacey, out-there and probably will provide those among you who indulge with more than a few trips.
There's no question Hawkwind are legend, and have already long ago stamped their mark on music history, but even so, you can sometimes expect legends to sit back and watch the money roll in, their work done. Not so this band, who are still putting out amazing albums like this at the tender age of almost forty-five, and on the strength of this offering, I would venture to say that not only is there life in the old dog yet, but there's bite and energy and vigour too, and it may be a very long time indeed before this particular dog has had its day!
(Note: there's very little of this album available on YT, and let's just say the version I have doesn't lend itself easily to making my own videos, so I'm afraid you'll have to do with the meagre content I've managed to cobble together here. It's an album well worth getting though. Hey, have I ever steered you wrong before? Well now, that can be explained, but apart from that...)
TRACKLISTING
Disc One
1. Seasons
2. The hills have ears
3. Mind cut
4. System check
5. Death trap
6. Southern cross
7. The prophecy
8. Electric tears
9. Drive by
Disc Two
1. Computer cowards
2. Howling moon
3. Right to decide
4. Aerospace age
5. The flowering of the rose
6. Trans air trucking
7. Deep vents
8. Green finned demon
9. (No title)