Space rock is one of my most favouritest musical genres. I fuckin’ loves it, even though it’s primarily designed for people that take a lot of psychedelic drugs, and I haven’t done that in a long, long time (like nearly 25 years! Eek!). It seemed like the logical thing to move on to, after I cut my musical teeth on Heavy Metal. The band that made the transition for me was Hawkwind.
I’m a huge Hawkwind fan. Fucking massive. Among the many items I carted halfway round the world when I emigrated to NZ was a crate of vinyl, which contains about 50 Hawkwind LPs. I just couldn’t bear to part with them, even though I could have made a fair bit of wonga as many of them are original 70s releases complete with booklets etc etc. They took their fair share of hippy-bashing when punk burst on the scene, and have remained pretty much universally un-cool for the last 30 years, but now I think the music writers that once pilloried them realise that in their own small way they influenced a hell of a lot. I’ve even heard them described as proto-punk, for fuck sake. I grew up with them basically, since I first heard the legendary Tommy Vance play Rocky Paths (the Live Chronicles version) on the legendary Friday Rock Show, and I haven’t stopped listening to them in almost 30 years. As far as I’m concerned though, they haven’t really made a decent record since the 80s (Xenon Codex being the last studio album I will listen to) and their golden period, for me, is the Robert Calvert era ’76-’79. Live At Brixton from 91 is a corker, but I’m possibly biased because I was there.
Anyway I’m rambling, but what I’m getting at, in a rather roundabout way, is that I’ve just discovered the best thing to happen to space rock since Hawkwind (well, since the Ozric Tentacles anyway). Allow me to introduce you to The Hawklords. Not THE Hawklords, well not really, but sort of a bit similar, like. While Hawkwind have been steadily declining and going through the motions a bit, what apparently started out as little more than a Hawkwind covers band is putting out space rock more Hawkwind-like than anything the actual Hawkwind have done in three decades. The Hawklords lineup nowadays consists of Harvey Bainbridge (an original Hawklord), Ron Tree (a former Hawkwind vocalist) and a guitarist Jerry Richards who I have a vague feeling did a stint in Hawkwind too, and some other names not familiar to me. Adrian Shaw, Nik Turner, Steve Swindells and Alan Davey have all featured in the past apparently, so credentials-wise this band is at least as Hawkwindy as Dave Brock’s lot.
I don’t even remember how I stumbled across them (it would have been Spotify, obvs, but not sure if it was served up to me as a recommendation or I just got a bit lost or what). I’m listening to R:Evolution (2015) as I write this, and to be honest, it could easily pass as the logical next album after 25 Years On. They have taken the best bits of Calvert era Hawkwind and melded it with the rocky, more polished sound from the 80s, with production values that Dave Brock could only dream of. Ron Tree is an excellent Calvert impersonator, indistinguishable from the real thing really. Pretty sure I’ve seen him with Hawkwind a couple of times and come away underwhelmed but here he is majestic. Jerry Richards is an extremely capable string-twanger. Not too much guitar hero, just enough to excite the palate. Way better than (my hero) Dave Brock, better even than the late great Huw Lloyd-Langton. Harvey Bainbridge is just doing what he always used to do, brilliantly – his keyboard sounds are just legendary.
R:Evolution is mostly reminiscent of PXR5 and Quark… but there is a nod to much earlier stuff too (One Day is basically Hurry On Sundown rebooted). Evolver has been lifted from Doremi or …Mountain Grill and there isn’t anything on here at all that sounds ‘original’, whatever the fuck that means anyway. I expect Dave Brock went fucking apeshit when he heard these for the first time, they’re that heavily influenced by his stuff. Pretty much every riff, every bassline, every melody can be traced to an earlier album somewhere but who cares? This isn’t self-indulgent and jammy like its forebears though, the songs are all very well crafted and well, songy, with choruses and bridges and all that shit you don’t often get in space rock. It’s all very psychedelic indeed though, crammed with lots of samples and trippy weird shit and permeated throughout by HB’s lush floaty breathy synth chords.
Censored (2014) was pretty much the same vein but the first two albums (2012’s We Are One and 2013’s Dream) are a little more basic, as you would expect. They still have the same influences, mostly the punky side of the Calvert era but with definite nods to the early 70s. I saw a post (Facebook? Twitter?) announcing the next album for later this year, featuring guest vocals from Kim McAuliffe (Girlschool), so I’m definitely looking forward to that.
In summary then, Hawklords is now basically a Hawkwind for the 21st Century, polished and produced properly. It’s like someone discovered 4 lost albums from the late 1970s. What a fantastic discovery. Thanks Spotify!
** Straw poll of other people in the room (namely, Mrs ByTor) – “Is this Hawkwind? I Didn’t know you still listened to them. It’s not actually that bad.” As positive a review as she’s ever likely to give of a space rock band, I might even be able to get away with playing it again some time.
one louder 