HW: _Spacebrock_

[Nick Medford]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.21.0101210235180.9036-100000 at chiark.greenend.o
rg.uk>, Jon Jarrett <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> writes
>        Dear All,
>                  a review I wrote

An unforgiving critic you are sir! However I didn't know 'You Burn Me Up'
and 'To Be Or Not' were also remakes, that does take some of the gloss off. I
still like this album, then again I like most of 'In Your Area' (which you flag
as your least favourite HW album) too...  'Xenon Codex' and- especially-
'Space Bandits' were the low points for me.  'Spacebrock' certainly is rather
fragmentary but at any given moment there's usually *something* interesting
going on, at least that's the way it sounds to me. And I do think it hangs
together as an album, at least it's a better album than the sum of the
individual tracks. Anyway each to his own.

This recycling of old material is getting too much though. If Alan should
rejoin on a more permanent basis, HW may yet have another creative
renaissance, otherwise I fear the end may be nigh... but every time I've
feared the worst before, they've bounced back with a storming new album,
so I'm hoping this can happen again. The fact that they're able to rework
old tracks so effectively in a live setting (think of the mutations 'Hassan I
Sabbah' has been through over the years, and the version played at the
Astoria was the best ever IMHO) implies there's still creative juice left in
the old warhorse.

--
Nick Medford