Ahh Hawkwind... a space rock group so arch that I'm guessing there is a Klingon word for Hawkwind. I had chalked them up as not being worth the trouble until I heard one of the reissued Space Ritual CD's earlier this year, and it made me a solid convert.Imagine if truck drivers actually piloted mammoth spacecraft, as they one day will. Hawkwind is what Southern Rock will evolve into as those truck drivers plummet crank-addled through the wormhole.
According to the literature, this album is not their finest hour, but I am quite enjoying the psycho-nuclear explosion radiating from the mid point between Sun Ra and Blue Cheer on the Nitzer Ebb axis, where this record touches down. The cover of "Gimme Shelter" is a bit much, but the soul desert arabesque of "Space is Their (Palestine)" and the two part Krautrock workout "Tibet is not China" make up for them in their blown circuit glory. And the title track, besides just being a kickass thing to drunkenly bellow midnight on New Years' Eve, is a masterpiece of stainless steel cheese - New Age chimes wow and flutter over an irradiated battlefield strewn with smoking robot carcasses. The true mark of its future potential came when my daughter just trotted in and said "You gotta turn this up loud!" and so I will. Engage!
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