(HW) BOTE (my review)

[mary ann sullivan]

Nice review.  I guess I am handicapped for now, I'll get a copy of
starshine.  I agree about the busy drum track on Sweet Obsession.  Sure it
isn't Space Ritual, but, it is what it is, and I love it.  

Mary 

-----Original Message-----
From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List [mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET] On
Behalf Of Jonathan Jarrett
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 5:07 PM
To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
Subject: Re: (HW) BOTE (my review)

On Mon, 2 Aug 2010, mike coleman wrote:
> After several listens so far (embarrassing I'm no longer in the front 
> lines getting stuff), here's my take- PRETTY BLOODY GREAT If I were to 
> point at something negative for me, it would be that the percussion is 
> too busy on "Sweet Obsession"
> In opposition to some commentators I've seen, I LOVE the inclusion of 
> "You Better Believe It", I think it is superb, and I am very used to 
> being drawn back to earlier material and I liked being reconnected 
> here, and I like the way it goes straight into some ambient freak-out...
> to me, the highlight of the album is Prometheus.....AWESOME!@!!
> Unfortunately Starshine is also fantastic so if your format lacks it 
> you are handicapped.
> the end
> another wonderful piece of Hawk clothing for my soul.

 	It took me bloody ages to get hold of this, not least because I left
it a bit late on the 2CD version and the first few places on Amazon that had
it turned out not to... Same old, same old. But I did get it, and then with
some reluctance also the single CD version to make sure I had `Starshine',
and so I can now say something about what I think of the album. (I realise
that there's another bonus track on the vinyl, but, eh, not quite Kollectory
enough, sorry.)

 	Firstly, as regards the main album I have to agree with everyone
who's said that all the rock action here is coming from Dibs. I'm not going
to count `You'd Better Believe It' or even `Sweet Obsession' because they're
reworks, which I wish the band would stop doing--I can't believe they were
short of material and neither of these are improvements of the original to
my ears. Nothing wrong with them, but they are substantially filler because
I don't find anything in them to keep me tuned in. (Neither were my
favourite songs in the first place, I should say, I will sometimes skip YBBI
on HotMG in any case. I don't like the middle space where Hawkwind tried to
give its blanga tunes.) The Dibs tracks are not just Spacehead leftovers,
that's for sure, though the style is unmistakably similar; they might count
as Krel leftovers but that would be a different thing. I think I agree with
Mike above that `Prometheus' is the stand-out (and least like Dibs's normal
output) but I think that `Sentinel' would have been if it came earlier in
the album; by the time we reach it we've already had `Wraith', which is
ploughing the same sort of mood albeit faster, and it seems as if `Sentinel'
is just more of the same, whereas I think it's actually one of Dib's finer
moments, emotional but bleak and quite complex to figure out. I loved this
live and I still like it here.

 	As to the others, well, I can't get very excited about any of
Niall's material I'm afraid. Tim's `Inner Visions' is the real stuff, but is
it real Blake or real HW? Is there a difference at the moment? Tim's hands
are all over this album, and that's no bad thing in as much as the
production is markedly better than on TMTYL, less bedroomy and more roomy if
you see what I mean.

 	The most distinctive piece all round, I think, is `Comfy Chair',
which is actually proof that Dave still has a peculiar kind of genius--it's
musically enveloping, almost claustrophobically dense and the sense moves
through the lines so slowly that your heartrate probably halves while
listening to it--but it's not rubbish, however sentimental it may be, and
neither is it simple or dull. It also definitely sounds as if it belongs on
the album, at the opposite end from the melodrama of `Prometheus' and `Inner
Visions'. (The two reworks *don't* sound like they belong here, precisely
because they were created by different bands; this band has its own
chemistry and cooperation going on that would not have generated these
songs. Hidden in there, I suppose, is a compliment about how fresh and
current this album sounds, however we may or may not like its songs.)

 	Between the two styles, for those that have it, is `Starshine',
which is largely jammed as far as I can tell and functions as a kind of
extended outtro to the album. It *is* very nice, able and not dull, but
doesn't have a lot of meaningful content to it and was I think rightly
relegated to bonus trackdom, where it does the job well.; the version of the
album without it seems to end rather abruptly by comparison.

 	So, in short, my hopes for the future out of this album: let Tim
stay involved in the production, everything will sound more professional as
a result; let Dibs write all the Krel-like songs he can, the band needs more
new ROCK and he appears to be where it's coming from; I wouldn't be
completely sorry to see Richard a bit further forward in the song-writing
again, if we must have would-be-dance like `Sweet Obsession' at least it can
be new and entertaining like `Angela Android'; and my challenge to Niall
Hone would be, make it clear what you sound like on the next album, because
this one leaves me with very little idea. It does seem quite likely that
there will *be* a next album, though, and in that I guess he has his share
of credit.

 	The live mini-album that is the bonus disc on the 2CD set,
meanwhile, is storming and very much worth having, not least because of the
blistering Motorhead-paced cover of Syd Barrett's `Long Gone', completely
unexpected and extremely impressive. This, I assume, is what Niall's input
sounds like in which case, let's have more of it, or was it Dibs? Either
way. `Wraith' sounds better live--typical Hawkwind to release a version of a
new studio song that surpasses the stduio recording almost straight
away--and all the other songs there fit well into the current sound and are
not dithered over. The closing self-interview is *almost* unlistenably
incoherent but does make it very clear that this band, as a bunch of people
condemned to spend a lot of time together, works, which has not always been
the case I guess, and just for that is nice to have.

 	That's my however-many-pennyworth, anyhow, yours all,
 							      Jon

-- 
       Jonathan Jarrett, Oxford       jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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