Hawkwind specialise in doing a kind of product that's almost impossible for music journalists to categorise. Let's see if Gonzo can go where no man has gone before, then.
Group: Hawkwind
Studio album: Onward
2CD release: 30 April 2012
Label: Eastworld
Review by: sonic_assassin
This is a bit of a split-level review, as tonight's Gonzo check-out of Hawkwind's latest album is for general music-listening folks, and in a couple of days or so, there'll be a second review aimed mainly at fans who have listened to the "Yuri Gagarin" album all the way through, or who maybe have gone to a Hawkwind gig in a trenchcoat that reeks of patchouli oil.
The pre-release info promises listeners a "lavish collection of new music featuring sound tracks for internet warfare, mantra’s for self realization and electrical systems checks. Revealing ancient prophecies, aligning constellations, urban violence and touchy feely robots."
Well, having listened to the album a few times, I don't think they're in any danger of prosecution by Trading Standards officials!
One review label that's often applied to Hawkwind is "space rock," and it's not a bad label, really... even if no-one knows what it really means. Another label that's been suggested is "Hawkwind" - ie, we should just categorise them as Hawkwind, and leave it at that. Well, anything that saves a music journalist any effort has got to be good, eh.
Anyway, imagine an album that's a swirly collage with some dense and fairly busy drums / bass/ lead guitar / rhythm guitar at times, and a bunch of people singing in places - sometimes solo and sometimes all together. Sometimes melodically and sometimes almost chanting.
And now imagine some of the instrumentation contains almost punky guitar, and other bits are ambient and based around keyboards. And then imagine some of the bits have dense and almost claustrophobic lead guitar that plays even while the vocals are going on... and that kind of indicates what sort of album we have here.
Oh yes, and there's swooshy synth sounds in places.
Yes, this is Hawkwind! Do not panic....
"Computer Cowards" has chunky and well-defined Hawkwind riffs and a decidedly up-to-date lyrical theme, as it tackles cyber-bullying... "hiding, sniping, sarcastic little creeps" who are "hiding in their rooms" and want to "bring people to their knees." Strong stuff, and I'd guess Mr Dibs (the current bass player of Hawkwind) had a hand in writing this, as he's been a victim of some pretty unpleasant and personal cyber-attacks before. It's about time people challenged the Computer Cowards, and the band have done just that, and in a very Hawkwindy and rock-grunge fashion.
To my mind, it's the best track on the album... and it's the opener on disk 2, so don't be surprised if you don't hear it for a while.
Whenever you're told that Hawkwind's lyrics "favour urban and science fiction themes," you can be pretty sure that that's a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia. It's fairly true, though, and I think the modern internet spreads across both of those themes, in a way.
Incidently, we at Gonzo haven't had advance sight of the inner artwork or the back cover of the album yet, so generally we've no idea who wrote what.
Some of the tracks (eg "The Hills have Ears") have raucous vox and punky instrumentation, and some are just strummity-strum ambient. As with any Hawkwind album, there's light and shade. There's just more of each on this one, making it (in my mind) far superior to the last album, "Blood of the Earth" (2010).
Here, the guys include a "system results" check of their studio gear, and tell us they're "ready for inspection." OK. Let's carry on with the inspection, then.
Moods on this album vary from some ambient and drifty-sounding tracks, through "The Prophecy" with its smooth-sounding singing and a string synth type of thread running through it, to "The Flowering of the Rose" - an instrumental from a few years back (from "Damnation Alley") which really shows what they can do when they decide to cut loose and do a bit of 'proper' jamming, and kick a bit of ass.
Adding seemingly-pointless samples onto tracks has been an aspect of their output for quite some time, and "The Prophecy" might raise a few rock 'n' roll eyebrows with its ice cream van chimes near the end of the track. Hey - expect Hawkwind to do the unexpected, eh. (I'll have a choc-ice, guv.)
Techno/punk rears its head in the shape of "Death Trap," in a way that I find personally hideous, but I guess it's horses for courses.
"Right to Decide" (here declared to be one of the bonus tracks) reminds us that "You can't do this / Can't do that / Can't go forward / And you can't go back..." and thus touches on more of the social themes that Hawkwind have kept an eye on for so many years. I sometimes wonder if sampling can be taken too far, as one track has the announcement "the number you have dialled has been changed" BT statement as its apparent focal point... although it's a cheerfully busy mish-mash of fairly heavy rock, once it gets going.
Around this point, other samples pop up, such as horses whinneying, but the overall impression I have of this album is of a band that are still going places and are still bubbling with new ideas. Even if some of the ideas DO consist of ice cream vans!
Trying the impossibe - classifying a Hawkwind album - I'd say this is space rock with balls, and (at the risk of mixing my anatomical metaphors) the band really do still kick ass.
Thoroughly recommended.
