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Hawkwind/Blood Of The EarthSep 15 '10 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Hawkwind's best album in nearly two decades.
As my review title indicates, this is a review for the latest Hawkind album Blood Of The Earth. Hawkwind have been around for 40 years now, with guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Dave Brock being the only founding member that has stayed with the group throughout their entire existence. I love this group, but I don't think they have put out a great album since 1992's Electric Tepee, which is in my opinion the last of their four star albums. Everything since then (with the exception of their brilliant live album The Business Trip from 94) has been more than a little disappointing. It Is The Business Of The Future To Be Dangerous sounded like outtakes from Electric Tepee, Alien 4 sounded like outtakes from It Is The Business, Distant Horizons had maybe two or three good songs on it, the live album In Your Area outright stunk, Spacebrock was essentially a Dave Brock solo album and not a very good one at that, and Take Me To Your Leader was merely okay and is not an album that I listen to that often. So, it gives me great pleasure to say that I actually like Blood Of The Earth a heck of a lot. It is easily my favorite Hawkwind album since Electric Tepee. It makes me happy to say to anybody who cares to listen, "Hey, you should hear the new Hawkind album!". I really believe that it is the new and returning band members that make this album so good. They include newbies Mr. Dibs on bass and vocals (replacing Alan Davey) and Niall Hone on guitar, and returning keyboardist Tim Blake, making his first appearance on a Hawkwind album since Levitation from 1980. Hone is the best lead guitarist this band has ever had and Blake has always been my favorite keyboardist for Hawkwind. Just having a real lead guitarist and a genuine talented keyboard player in the group is a real plus. Also, both Hone and Blake either write or co-write some of the best songs here. Funny to say this, but I feel it is Dave Brock himself who is holding this line-up back from potential greatness, even though he does contribute two very good songs here as well, even if one of them (Sweet Obsession) is a re-make of one of his solo tunes from the mid 80's. This album was originally supposed to be released in the U.S. at the end of June, but the release date got pushed back to July...then August...and now late September or early October. In my impatience, I did something that I have never done before....I bought and downloaded the MP3 version of this album in early July before finally purchasing it in CD form this past week. (Amazon infuriated me by releasing this as a download again in August, with bonus tracks and at the same price!) For all the nice things I said earlier, the album does not get off to a great start. The first track, Seahawks, is a heavy Egyptian-flavored trance-like number, something Hawkwind did much better on Electric Tepee. The title track is even worse and more forgettable, with Brock and special guest Matthew Wright doing some spoken word stuff over a background of boring synthesizer music. Fortunately, these are the two worst songs here and things pick up and stay up with Wraith, a heavy, uptempo rock song written by the group without Brock and featuring vocals from either Tim Blake or Mr. Dibs. This is followed by the soothing and surprisingly melodic guitar and synthesizer instrumental Green Machine. Written by guitarist Niall Hone, this is one of many highlights from this entertaining album. Inner Visions is an Arabic/Egyptian flavored hard rocker and has one of the album's catchiest guitar riffs. I believe Tim Blake, who wrote the song, also sings on it. When I first listened to this album, I had it on in the background while I was lying on my bed reading (I think I was reading a book by John Lescroart, who I was reading a lot of during the summer) and Sweet Obsession was the first song that really caught my attention. I didn't know it at first, but this is a re-make of a song from one of Dave Brock's solo albums from the mid to late 80's. It is catchy as all heaven and heck and a very happy number. I love Brock's singing on it, reminding me once again why he has always been my favorite singer for this group and what he can do with a good vocal melody. The rhythm track on this is a bit odd and very busy, almost too busy, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the song. Dave Brock also writes and sings the next tune, the sleepy but very likeable Comfy Chair. Prometheus, another band-minus Brock written hard rock number, is the 6th great song in a row. I can't remember the last Hawkwind album that had that many good songs in a row! Unfortunately, that streak is ended...well, kind of...with a questionable but not completely useless remake of the Hall Of The Mountain Grill song You'd Better Believe It. The band play up a (brain) storm on it and I can't fault their enthusiastic playing, but I still prefer the original, which has Lemmy on it and had him croaking out the song title in that way that only he can! Sentinel is a slow but melodic moody hard rocker with the album's best harmony vocals on it. Tis rare to hear such beautiful vocal harmonies on a Hawkwind album! Blood Of The Earth ends on a quiet and soothing note with the ambient electronic instrumental Starshine, the bongo drums on it reminding of Going To Hawaii and Electric Tepee from the album Electric Tepee. Brock co-wrote it with the late Jason Stuart, who also plays keyboards on it. There are at least two other versions of this album floating around on the internet...a vinyl version which comes with an extra song and a two CD import version, both of which have been hard to track down. Overall, I would give Blood Of The Earth 3 and 3/4 stars. It is not a perfect album and the production leaves a little to be desired at times..it is certainly not their cleanest sounding album. But...in terms of songs and the high level of musicianship, it is easily my favorite Hawkwind album in almost two decades. It is an album that gets better with each listen and most importantly, it is an album I listen to for enjoyment and because I WANT to listen to it again...a darn good reason, me thinks! Kudos to Brock and company for coming up with something this damn good so late in their career. !!!!!!!!  |
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