HW: "Daze of the Underground" Rev. just for fun Disc I

[Chuck Rosenberg]

uhh...to sharpen up my not-so-honed review-chops and also just for fun (so
used to having had at least a few before i even start), thought i'd put down my
comments on this release, old hat for most maybe, but i just picked it up a
coupla months ago (haven't listened to it in a while actually). (Curious to see
others' comments/faves, or should i just go look in the Archives?) sorta im
promptu...culled from amidst pages of rambling boring peronal-journal and notes
on the "A.A." book and what-not...starfarer feel free to do a piss-take if any
of it's overly-sentimental or pretentious...

generall speaking, i guess you could say this is more from the metal/doom
angle (w/many current and classic space-rock bands that fall somewhere in
between) than either the indie/crust/post-punk-ish "Assassins of Silence" or the
techno-remix "Ritual of the Solstice"...anyway, the three together indicate quite
a span of influence, though all these tributes may be a bit indulgent.

what the smeg, here it goes...

Time Blake "Spirit of the Age"
There truly are several great distinctive re-constructions of this tune, this
one naturally adhering more to the '79 era, which Tim co-arranged, i
guess...just love that crisp, bright, tight synth-driven sound...that lead is
fantastic!...is that guit or some kind of synth?? super-human realms of texture and
dexterity...sounds like Huw possessed by Hendrix... tim's vocal is nasally and
properly low-mixed, but perfect.

Litmus "Paradox"
faithful to the orig. even to the point of reproducing the melotron, but
heavier metallic power-chords for the juiced-up bit and plenty of attack-fx, two
voices to address the Lemmy and Brock tones, good energy, anachronistic
Huw-style leads

Amorphis "levitation"
one of the first high-profile metal acts to release a HW cover, I was so
psyched when this came out 'cause i'd been telling my old metal friends that they
should all dig on HW...but less stoked now...those chunky sterile, compressed,
claustrophobic power chords cannot breath into space...

Spacehead "Right Stuff"
These guys blew me away when they released "In Space We Trust", seemed like
they wanted to throw some balls-out thrashing metal and british tribal music
together and take it for a ride. this is a good version, more of a swift stomp
than incessant thrash-snare; but there've been so many, HW and otherwise, and
only seems a good excuse to bring attention to a truly classic cover-version,
and definitive reinterpretation of the original, Pressurehed's - featured on
the Sudden Vertigo album, recalls the original's chords and words but takes to a
parallel universe of  rhythmic, noisy, menacing, industrial, totally-inspired
space-rock! wow, i'm getting excited... (but listening to Vocokesh now, which
is good...)

Back to the death-metal scene, we have Meads of Asphodel - "Utopia" the vox
of course are pure death shite-style, everything else pretty standard besides
the "bored shitless" bit, some new fx, alan on bass, huw on guit. not bad, but
basically expendable...which maybe makes it bad...considering the
oversaturation of covers in the midst...

A basically unrecognizable "Song of the Swords" by Enchanted sped up to
thrash -tempo, i kinda like this interpretation and the tight death-style
drum-fills and the guit that recalls the orig. keyboard riff in the chorus - vox are
death-growl and black-screech respectively, but once again basically shite, as
have been most since about '91/'92.

I like Alan's increasingly-harsh vocal style as here on Bedouin's "Sword of
the East", becoming gradually more like #1.

Silver Machine does itself and tries to recreate the original feel i suppose,
but why bother? i think my favorite cover (piss-take really) is Sore Throat's
"Silver Kerching". The original (or should we say HW's own original remix)
simply has a sense of "moment" inherently born of a time and place and space
(even if it's not truly live) not reproducable, a freaky space-pop fluke not even
the group themselves have ever recaptured, or even tried.

Murkins redo "Psi Power", overly faithful to the original "armchair"
Hawklords version right down to texture and tuning, expendable.

Quarkspace does QS&C natch, an entirely silly rendition w/Paul Williams'
obnoxious ever-present "Bop!"-snare, and sloppy live faux-brit dual-vox, bright
cheery piano stomps, some fuzz guitar - appropriate! Still, recalls its
far-surperior "Assassins" counterpart - the disturbingly-whacked version by Puff
Tube, as unlikely an event as even HW's own "Silver Machine".

Overmars - takes on the godly "Magnu" and succeeds! suitably heavy and
stomping job, ups the menace a bit with a modern doom-metal rhythm guitar while the
keys remain lofty, spacy, inspired.

Alpha Omega does a decent "Refer Madness" here, w/some good '70s-style keys,
plenty of fx, but misses the satirical inflection of Uncle Bob's original
vocal.

ST 37 "Orgone Accumulator"
might have been curious to hear something more recent from ST, but this is
sort of a classic itself, typically noisy fuzzed-out stomp, scott's whiny
punk-yodel nearly drowned out by the storm of guitar, fx and tronics, throws in some
additional reflections on Reich later on in the whigged-out boogie.

We get another "Magnu" from History of Guns. i've always been partial to this
tune, far more so than many others' faves (like "paradox", for one), so i
hafta love it, esp. the techno/electro-style percussives, but it's meant more as
a reprise and end to disc I, thus truncated...

Disc II comin' soon, i guess...

NP: "Silver Machine" by Namesake (you've got your own, but it's not as good
as the orig. model)

NE: Nature Valley oats 'n' honey granola-bar

NQ: Screwdriver, hold the Rotka