HW: New album...

[Doug Pearson]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 19:11:14 +0200, Henderson Keith
<keith.henderson at PSI.CH> wrote:

>Hey Folks ... I just thought that I
>might persuade one of you fine folks who has been taking part/following
>the discussion to clue us clueless people in as to what the general
>consensus it.  (Yeah, I know, I know, half the people hate it, and half
>the people love it, right?)

What about those of us who love half of it and hate half of it? ;^)

I can't say that I have any sort of overall opinion on it, since I've only
listened to the clips a few times, and anyway, they're only clips, so you
don't get a feel for the flow of the album, or even the full flow of the
individual songs (I note that they've done a good job of including both
verse/chorus and "break" sections in the clips, thanks to whoever made
those edits!).

I'll forego comments on the individual songs until I can hear 'em all the
way through, but I can come up with a number of general impressions.

First off, it's apparent that there's a lot of variety, any one song
sounds little like any other song (although they're all recognizably
Hawkwind).  That's definitely a good thing in my book, and I think all the
best HW albums have been well-balanced (which may explain why I don't care
for IitBotFtbD, although my second-least-favorite HW album is fairly well
stylistically balanced, so what do I know?).  Unfortunately, the one style
that doesn't seem to be represented is the straight ahead hard rock that's
always been an important part of the band's sound (and is certainly well-
represented in any of their live albums).  One of the reasons I
like 'Distant Horizons' so much is *because* it rocked out more than any
HW studio album of the prior 10 years (and still had tracks like "Clouded
Vision" and the instrumental "Love In Space" for the all-important
balance - just as xISOS had "Wrong Step" and "Children of the Sun", HotMG
had "Web Weaver" and the title track, CotBS had ambient instrumentals
like "Shade Gate", etc. etc.).  On TMTYL, the heaviest tracks seem to be
mid-tempo, or "anthemic", at best.

My biggest complaint is: What the f*^k is up with the lite-jazz Kenny G
sax (or sax samples)?!?  Awful!  The sound brings to mind velour-leisure-
suited cocktail lounge musicians of the 1970s ... playing the kind of
music that Michael Butterworth describes as coming out of the Death
Generator in 'Time Of The Hawklords'.  It's as criminal as if they'd put a
power ballad with that awful 80's DX-7 Rhodes piano preset on CotBS (or if
Rudolph/Powell had successfully carried out their coup and made a
disco/funk/fusion HW album in '77).  If you're gonna have a saxophone in
your rock band, it's *gotta* have balls!  Well-mannered doesn't cut it!
(Whew! Glad I got that off my chest.)

Arthur Brown sounds great on the tracks he's on.  I realize I'm stating
the obvious when I mention how amazing his voice is, but he also brings a
much-needed sense of humor to the proceedings (since Harvey isn't
around).  Unfortunately, his presence underscores the fact that none of
the other three have a particularly strong voice, which probably goes a
long way to indicate that it's probably for the best that he hasn't become
a permanent member.  And, for many older HW tracks, his voice is probably
a bit much (but a rendition of, say, "Steppenwolf", would seem like a
winner to me).

Well ... while I'm on the subject of singers, I'll make my only comment
about a single track: Matthew Wright may have a good voice to be a talk
show host or tv personality (or whatever he is), but he does not have a
good voice to be a singer in a rock band!

Elsewhere in the clips, I hear some nice guitar leads & noodling that
sound like they're from Dave; if so, they don't sound like anything Huw
would/could have done any better, so I don't hear anything that would make
me miss his presence.  I don't really hear anything to make me miss
Simon's presence, either, and I don't think he would have fit in well with
most of the songs.  Which is too bad, as he's one instrumentalist who
always seems to have something to add on the live albums he's on (which I
find to be less-often true for, say, Harvey or Tim).  Synth noises
throughout seem cool enough, but I'm positive that they'd be better if
Keith Kniveton had contributed.  I didn't hear anything that would
recognizably Alan's Wavestation work, which I enjoy hearing in compact
doses (2-minute instrumental or break is great; 5-minute Wavestation
instrumental is way too long); maybe there's just nothing in the clips so
far ...

Now, how about some comments from someone who loves the half I hate and
hates the half I love ... ? :^)

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com