24 February 2012

Hawkwind - 1971 - In Search of Space

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

*This is a repost from a year ago - I've done a bit of editing to my review as we're now considering the bonus tracks on the CD as well.

Hawkwind has a giant, intimidating discography, and I have to admit that I haven't delved too deeply into it (well, maybe now I have) . I do know that I dig this album quite well. The live "Space Ritual" typically gets the love, but I find the sound on that one a little muddy, and Lemmy's bass seems to be out of tune for most of the album (not that this detracts from the awesomeness of Lemmy). I dig the slightly more focused, and better recorded intergalactic musings found here. The band has no problem entering a full on psychedelic heavy metal groove, and there are plenty of wild early synth sounds to keep my attention.

The album opens with the punk rock stomp of "You Shouldn't Do That." It's an absolutely essential track with plenty of wah-wah acid guitar, wild saxophone madness, and some electronic tones to penetrate into the deepest recesses of your brain. This is all capped with some great breathless vocal 'harmonies' making the song's title a mantra. Yeah, it's 16 minutes long, but that may very well be too short. The other classic on this disc is "Master of the Universe," which I suppose is the band trying to usurp Black Sabbath's claim of the title "Master of Reality." I don't know if they quite take down Ozzy, but the psychedelic sludge is a pretty even match and Tomy Iommi probably would have killed all of Hawkwind to steal the guitar riff if he had had the chance (dammit, I need to write about heavy metal more often). "We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago" is a meditation on if the band had focused on progressiv bluegrass I suppose, while "Adjust Me" is a wandering experiment that doesn't quite pay off. The CD adds some pretty worthy bonus tracks with the addition of the "Seven By Seven/Silver Machine" single. "Silver Machine" in particular finds the band with their atomic thrusters at full blast, heading directly into the sun of Ceti Alpha 5. It's a perfect mindstorm of psychedelic heavy metal. There's also a live take of "Born to Go," which captures the band at their pre-Lemmy punkiest.

At this point Hawkwind was sitting a point right in the middle of progressive rock, heavy metal, and psychedelia, and it was a pretty groovy place to be. I don't know if this is really Hawkwind's best effort, but it is one that I find myself listening to over and over again.
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8 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 24, 2012 at 11:16 AM

    http://www.mediafire.com/?b8axc2174xhtuli

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2012 at 9:52 AM

    There seems to be a problem with opening the file:
    "unexpected end of archive"

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2012 at 8:49 AM

    Same here, unexpected end of archive error.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2012 at 10:32 AM

    Link worked ok for me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. arcs1971March 7, 2012 at 3:41 AM

    Don't download it for free, buy the CD! The early Hawkwind albums are very cheap these days.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMarch 7, 2012 at 7:55 AM

    @arcs: I have a copy of Doremi... and of Space Ritual on CD at home. I usually buy the music I like and I'm aware that old stuff like Hawkwind is easy to find at a very cheap price. In fact, I paid something like 8€ for a new, sealed copy of Doremi 6-7 years ago. It's not a matter of price, I just want to listen to an album before buying it. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousMarch 29, 2012 at 5:32 AM

    Thank you for this upload.
    I have the LP of In search of space, it doesn't sound very wall, but the package is beautiful!

    Alex Field from Rome, Italy

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2012 at 6:13 PM

    Lemmy is on Born to go, it is an edited version of the Greasy Truckers version, which was from a gig at the Roundhouse in London, the backing track for Silver Machine is from the same gig, although the 45 has a massive edit and some overdubs,also worth pointing out is the full title of the LP is"X In Search of Space" mosr folks miss out the X!

    ReplyDelete