Hawkwind – Stories From Time And Space

Hawkwind, now in their fifty-fourth year since their seminal, self-titled debut, couldn’t have better named their thirty-fifth studio album (plus half-a-dozen in everything but name offerings from the Hawklords and other related ‘Hawk projects).
Stories From Time And Space perfectly encapsulates the further tales of the good ship Hawkwind as it sails the sound waves of five and a half decades of space rock, captained by the seemingly ageless Dave Brock (vocals, guitars, keys, synths) in the company of fellow ‘Hawk officers, the long-standing Richard Chadwick (drums, vocals, percussion), Magnus Martin (vocals, guitars, keys, synths), Doug MacKinnon (bass) and Tim "Thighpaulsandra" Lewis (synths, keys).
Opener 'Our Lives Can't Last Forever' is an atmospheric, title explanatory lament that one would think would be better placed at the end of the album; but with an opening line of "time, it waits for no-one," and the band in what one would have to accept is their twilight years, it makes perfect time and space sense to place it first.
The space-grooving 'The Starship (One Love One Life)' is underpinned by a funky little bass line that places it very much in the present, while still nodding to the band’s classic space-rock past.
Indeed fans of the band's 70s space rock explorations will fully embrace much of this album, especially the likes of 'What Are We Going to Do While We’re Here' (classic Hawkwind space-rock bookended by wistful saxophone from guest musician Michal Sosna over dreamy atmospherics) and 'The Tracker' (a psychedelic space rocker with a tale of hoping for help from beyond our planet).
Instrumental vignettes such as the soft synth blankets of 'Eternal Light' and 'The Night Sky,' along with the more foreboding 'The Black Sea' (itself segueing from longer instrumental piece, the pseudo-spooky 'Re-generate') help frame lyric-driven numbers such as spacey, tempo-shifting ballad '‘Til I Found You,' psychedelic space-folk number 'Traveller Of Time & Space' and Magnus Martin’s 'Frozen In Time.'
The latter is an atmospheric synths meet acoustic blues for the last man standing, when everything else has stopped ("I can see the earth’s still turning, I can see my breath; I can see the sun’s still burning, but it never sets").
The album closes on the instrumental 'Stargazers,' a wall (or sky) of dark sounds that gives way to a dreamier, space-jazz groove while Dave Brock’s classic Hawkwind guitar sounds play overhead.
Stories From Time And Space doesn’t bring anything new to the table, being more of an amalgamation of what has gone before and the best of Hawkwind’s more recent stylings.
But it successfully continues the story, and legacy, of one of the most enduring of British rock bands.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
Stories From Time And Space perfectly encapsulates the further tales of the good ship Hawkwind as it sails the sound waves of five and a half decades of space rock, captained by the seemingly ageless Dave Brock (vocals, guitars, keys, synths) in the company of fellow ‘Hawk officers, the long-standing Richard Chadwick (drums, vocals, percussion), Magnus Martin (vocals, guitars, keys, synths), Doug MacKinnon (bass) and Tim "Thighpaulsandra" Lewis (synths, keys).
Opener 'Our Lives Can't Last Forever' is an atmospheric, title explanatory lament that one would think would be better placed at the end of the album; but with an opening line of "time, it waits for no-one," and the band in what one would have to accept is their twilight years, it makes perfect time and space sense to place it first.
The space-grooving 'The Starship (One Love One Life)' is underpinned by a funky little bass line that places it very much in the present, while still nodding to the band’s classic space-rock past.
Indeed fans of the band's 70s space rock explorations will fully embrace much of this album, especially the likes of 'What Are We Going to Do While We’re Here' (classic Hawkwind space-rock bookended by wistful saxophone from guest musician Michal Sosna over dreamy atmospherics) and 'The Tracker' (a psychedelic space rocker with a tale of hoping for help from beyond our planet).
Instrumental vignettes such as the soft synth blankets of 'Eternal Light' and 'The Night Sky,' along with the more foreboding 'The Black Sea' (itself segueing from longer instrumental piece, the pseudo-spooky 'Re-generate') help frame lyric-driven numbers such as spacey, tempo-shifting ballad '‘Til I Found You,' psychedelic space-folk number 'Traveller Of Time & Space' and Magnus Martin’s 'Frozen In Time.'
The latter is an atmospheric synths meet acoustic blues for the last man standing, when everything else has stopped ("I can see the earth’s still turning, I can see my breath; I can see the sun’s still burning, but it never sets").
The album closes on the instrumental 'Stargazers,' a wall (or sky) of dark sounds that gives way to a dreamier, space-jazz groove while Dave Brock’s classic Hawkwind guitar sounds play overhead.
Stories From Time And Space doesn’t bring anything new to the table, being more of an amalgamation of what has gone before and the best of Hawkwind’s more recent stylings.
But it successfully continues the story, and legacy, of one of the most enduring of British rock bands.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ