Hawkwind in ‘Space Rock’ album shock!
Release Date: 5th April 2024
Label: Cherry Red Records
Format: CD / vinyl / DL / stream
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends – thus spake Greg Lake in the most famous of ELP’s Progressive utterings. Just like Dave Marsh, he could well have seen the future of rock and roll and the future was Hawkwind. 2024 finds them thirty six albums into their output from the studio (not to mention a shedload of live offerings) and showing no signs of slowing down with a recent flow of albums that sees them in a rich vein of form,
The current line up maintains the current quintet of Dave Brock, Richard Chadwick, Magnus Martin, Doug MacKinnon and Tim “Thighpaulsandra” Lewis. Last seen at Manchester Academy just under a year ago on a tremendous double bill with Arthur Brown, they belied their combined age with a dynamic show while new music continues to pour forth as they head ever onwards.
However, it’s not without an eye on the looming shadow of mortality. “As we fade into the future, our lives won’t last forever,” sings Dave Brock in a world weary resignation in the opening Can’t Last Forever. Packed with musings on the passage of time and inevitability of physical life coming to an end, it’s a realistic yet melancholy tone that’s set as they head to Galaxy 117 on The Starship . The “one love one life” earworm and assorted celestial sounds, synth doodlings and electronic zaps and whooshes being much more standard fare. That comes via the familiar sonic rush that emerges from a peaceful lull in What Are We Going To Do While We’re Here, a punky menace in the snarling delivery of the title in the lyric that merges into The Tracker.
The thirteen tracks offer a balance between the thundering riffing that’s been the Hawkwind trademark for five decades with moody soundscapes and reflections that skirt the dreamy, Post Rock and shoegaze boundaries. The acoustic rustiness that Underwater City drips with, is as evocative as the sub classical arrangement in the following The Night Sky. A couple of vignettes where a celestial ambience offers a brief interludes and provide a “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment for our intrepid explorers.
In a couple of nods to familiar memories, it sounds like someone using Fripp’s ‘Heroes’ guitar sound in Traveller Of Time & Space while an industrial atmosphere shifts into a laidback Doors-y vibe on Re-Generate; the Manzarek styled electric keyboard flourishes re-appear again on Stargazers where the atmospheric vibe once again sets up a mood for jazzy meanderings. However, the return to the theme that nags away in Magnus Martin’s Frozen In Time finds him pondering how”we’re all just doing time“; musing on the passage of time and what lies in the now and and the beyond.
It’s not often you’d associate the grizzled Psychedelic Space Rockers with such a thoughtful and measured piece of work. The messages all over Stories From Time And Space joins those of last year’s The Future Never Waits in prodding the human race to sit up and take heed. Wise man that Dave Brock.
Here’s The Starship:
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