What does it sound like?:
I’m in an on/off relationship with Hawkwind – the band originally formed in Notting Hill by Dave Brock and mythical King of Athens Theseus, who originally instigated the band’s revolving door recruitment policy. I tend to drop in every few years or so to see how they’re doing, and we generally get on well enough without having to exchange birthday cards, however I was intrigued to learn that there was a new album hove-to on the horizon based on E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, a 1909 short story more likely to have been adapted by the Wachowski siblings than produced under the Merchant-Ivory banner.
The record is a concept album (natch) within which shorter atmospheric instrumental pieces punctuate longer (but never over-long) numbers which are intended to drive the narrative forward. The instrumentals are generally well put together however I’m afraid I sort of lost sight of the plot a bit after about the third song, possibly still having been distracted by the opening All Hail the Machine which is squarely aimed at recreating the halcyon period narration of things like Sonic Attack or Ten Seconds of Forever, but which mostly brings to mind Robyn Hitchcock making a guest address at a Gumby convention.
Things do pick up almost immediately though – King of the World bounces along on a sturdy Immigrant Song-styled riff, Hexagone is enjoyably quirky, Living on Earth sounds like Cotton-Eyed Joeas reimagined by The Dame, and the production is generally pin-sharp throughout. Harmonic Hall is a good psych folk work out, but things start tailing off from there until by the closing Lost in Science the group have veered toward recreating the sound of a sixth form band rehearsing a David Bowie number that they’ve all heard but no-one actually owns.
What does it all *mean*?
It’s not what you’d call a feel-good story with a happy ending, so probably not best saved for romantic evenings in, or dinner parties with the neighbours, but I bet it’ll make for a great stage show.
Goes well with…
Incense, and headphones.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
…this sort of thing.
bang em in bingham says
Yes but is Stacia on it?
James Blast says
Nup! She retired to Ireland a long time ago and wants nothing to do with her Hawkwind days.
James Blast says
I’m no use at reviews at the moment but I’ve been happy listening to that new Hawkwind album. First impression is that it has one good tune – Thursday, and the rest is Hawkwind by Numbers.
Sigh.
retropath2 says
It’s a bit better than that, James. Maybe not much, but, seemingly in preparation for this review, recent months have seen me searching out the gaps in my limited Hawkwind collection. (Hawkwind and In Search of Space) So Do Re Mi etc and Hall of the Mountain Grill have been recently spun, ahead of this. And it is better than either than them, but worse than the first two. By and large their dalliance with dance is more or less expunged, bar a pastoral instrumental interlude or two, and it is back to primitive garage proto-punk with added, if muted, bleep and booster. With impressively blind man falling down stairs drumming, track 2, King of the World is a stonker, one to thrash around senselessly to should oblivion beckon. The talkie bits are, as ever, dire and dismal, the narrator having the gravitas, maybe intended, of a baddie from Blakes 7. (Avon calling?) . So, by numbers? I’ll give it foive, Janice.
James Blast says
Take two tablets of the 1999 Party and go to bed now!