HAWKWIND – Into The Woods (2017)

British label Cherry Red Records are proud to have signed legends HAWKWIND for the release of their next studio album, “Into The Woods“, tomorrow May 5.
Hawkwind are more than the sum of their original members. Only Dave Brock remains of the band who formed in 1969, but that doesn’t matter. They’re a force, perennial and eternal.
It’s as though that noise they make, that primordial driving groove, was there long before they emerged – their numerous players, 50 at last count, were just tapping into it – and it will be there long after Brock has gone.

Hawkwind still are a jumble of paradoxes: the two-chord-simple rockers and primitive electronicists, in search of space while mired in everyday slurry; the city kids with a penchant for the pastoral.
“Into The Woods” shows where Brock, who lives on a farm in Devon, is currently at. The titles speak volumes: ‘Cottage In The Woods’, ‘The Woodpecker’… There’s even a track called ‘Vegan Lunch’.
But just when you think the erstwhile anarcho druggie, leader of rock’s closest thing to a speed-addled biker gang, has become a tree-hugging sap, the glorious grind of Hawkwind’s muddy motorik revs into earshot.

Besides, if anything on Into The Woods Brock and his merry men (including drummer Richard Chadwick and keyboardist Tim Blake) conjure, not the mellowness but the magic and mystery, even malevolence, of nature.
The opening, title number is a dark invitation (‘We are waiting here for you,’ warns Brock) over what sounds like a metallic nursery rhyme. ‘Have You Seen Them’ is seven minutes of psych freakery and spaceship bleeps. ‘Space Ship Blues’ captures that Hawkwind duality with its sci-fi synth whorls and cheery banjo.

Hawkwind in 2017 will either seem like an irrelevance or the continuation of a vital source, just as ‘The Wind’ will strike you either as four minutes of pseudo-poetry or a stirring incantation neatly blending nature-imagery and sound FX.
But chances are, by the astral boogie of ‘Magic Scenes’ and chugging insistence of ‘Wood Nymph’, you’ll be seduced, ‘silent tendrils of the mist’ and all.
‘Magic Mushroom’ is the nine-minute blowout, a protean swirl of organ and guitars, where rock meets trance. After several minutes of organ vamping and guitar extrapolating, there is the sound of a spacecraft whooshing skywards.

After listening to Hawkwind, and specifically “Into The Woods”, you get the sensation of being transported thru several decades in Rock.
They are one of the seminal Prog Rock bands, space-rock pioneers, and they – at least veteran Dave Brock – have seen it all… all what happened in Rock since its inception.
And this is what “Into The Woods” is mostly about; a mixture of 50 years Of Rock music with progressive focus.
Strongly Recommended

01 – Into the Woods
02 – Cottage in the Woods
03 – The Woodpecker
04 – Have You Seen Them
05 – Ascent
06 – Space Ship Blues
07 – The Wind
08 – Vegan Lunch
09 – Magic Scenes
10 – Darkland
11 – Wood Nymph
12 – Deep Cavern
13 – Magic Mushroom

Dave Brock – guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, vocals
Jonathan Derbyshire – bass, vocals
Niall Hone – bass, keyboards
Haz Wheaton – bass
Richard Chadwick – drums, vocals
Tim Blake – keyboards, virtual guitar

PRE ORDER:
www.amazon.de/Into-Woods-Hawkwind/dp/B06WD8DQ9T
.