HW/OFF: while I'm at it...

[Jon Jarrett]

        Dear All,
                   and here is a review of Krel's _Ad Astra_. I
particularly enjoyed the spot-the-HW-riff bit and recommend that everyone
gets a copy to play this game themselves :-)

        "Krel are one of the few remaining British space-rock groups. Or
they were. They started in the early eighties I believe, shedding various
people who went on to form Spacehead, PXR1 and Cellular Structure and some
time two or three years ago finally went pling leaving one Martin M with
the name. He is now Krel. And though they were apparently very highly
thought of on the scene in the early nineties, only now (well, 1999) has
anything more album-like than limited edition cassettes emerged. And since
it's all Martin's work I wonder how much it's like proper Krel. But
anyway.

        "This album is a very good example of a phenomenon that really
irritates me in the British underground. By which I mean that its a very
good album within that phenomenon. That phenomenon is the inability of
British space-rock to do anything more than rip off, imitate and generally
fail to get over Hawkwind. Now, Hawkwind are a legend, and though they do
turn out some crap they are capable of complete transcendence and no-one
else does it the same way. But Krel and Spacehead particularly seem to be
unable to get further than recycling those riffs and putting new lyrics on
the old themes (Hawkwind haven't dedicatedly sung about space since the
early seventies). Now, this is a good album. The keyboards are very nice,
the textures good, the samples well-chosen and placed, and the playing of
the other instruments cant be complained about. Even the sleeve is nice
although the fact that all the information is inside the booklet annoys me
- it would be nice to check a track number without extracting it. I am
often hyper-critical of the stuff that gets claimed as "better than
Hawkwind" or "reminiscent of Hawkwind at their best" so I'll try and make
clear again before I launch into the diatribe that there are lots of good
points about this album and I do like it. The only musical argument I have
with it per se is that Martin isnt a great singer, and that he mixes his
vocals too loud. This is a particular problem on the second part of the
first track, `Towers', which has a deliberately arythmic vocal. So the
riff just gets established (and its not a brilliant riff, but it does) and
you're just hooking onto it when the words arrive and throw you off
it. Once you know when they're coming in its OK but on first listen that
is not good.

        "The lyrics are not too bad. Spacehead have the worst lyrics in
the world, the sort of junk spacerock set to Motorhead-like patterns that
you can generate for hours on end, rhyming `space' with `race' and so
on. This stuff is much better, the same pattern but unexpected words and
things that sound thoughtful. And though the early rock tracks have a bit
too much of the singalong bounce about them, particularly `Time' (the
instrumentals are without exception either nice or actually very good,
especially the manic fretboard freakout of `Star Fall' which I love), once
you get to `I Can See Starz' you're into a pounding blanga with phased
vocals whipping your face like branches as you race into the unknown. So
yes, it's good. Not as good as the hype maybe but good.

        "But but but. The Hawkwind references come one or two to the
song. I'll give you an summary of what I mean:

The Hour of the Gate: quiet rocket sample and synth wash, over as soon
        as it begins
Towers: OK maybe not this one actually, but then it's about the worst
        song
Sight Land: mood piece. The general progression reminds me of `Going to
        Hawaii' but I don't think it's a deliberate lift. Nice glissando
        too
Time: guitar part from `Kings of Speed', vocal line is the first phrase
        of `Arrival in Utopia' alternated up and down half an octave
The End of Time: synth outtro
Nomad: synthi stuff and quite pleasant - builds into...
Transmissions: I can't place these bits though the guitar part is `Kings
        of Speed' again; the lyrics are also dangerously close to
        Spacehead territory but thankfully not about being on a colony
        ship flying into the unknown so it could be worse - the album
        starts to get good here I think
I Can See Starz: bass and guitar lines set on the bass line from the
        bridge of `Brainstorm' - this may be why it's so good
So Long: synth and samples - at least one of the synth lines is from
        `Life Form' but like the `Brainstorm' riff that's not exactly
        difficult to hit by accident
Star Fall: a short cover of `Life Form' to open, bass from the crescendo
        buildup between bridge and final verse of `Brainstorm'
Green Sky: guitar part I think the bass line of `Mirror of Illusion',
        and the lyrics include the line "standing on the edge of the
        spirit of the age" which can only be justified because it is two
        Hawkwind titles - halfway through drops into `Golden Void' with no
        pretence of originality
Satellites: modified slightly from opening section of `Space is Deep'
To The Stars: begins with `Golden Void' again only more dressed up, and
        wanders off to close

        "So, in conclusion, it's a good approach at doing Hawkwind
classics in nineties dressing, and if Hawkwind still put spacerock of this
quality out they would still be legendary. The fact that Krel too are
drawing on Hawkwind's past glories should not be allowed to detract from
the fact that they do it well. But so do Hawkwind. How many parrot acts do
we need? And when will someone do something new?"

        Yours,
               Jon

ObCD: Hawkwind - _Alien4_
--
     Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)       jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
   =====================================================================
        "There's nothin' more dangerous than a wounded mosquito."