Hawkwind in 1977 were a very different beast from previous incarnations.
Nik Turner,Alan Powell and Paul rudolph sax,drums and bass respectively were fired by Dave Brock because of their furtive attempts to overthrow his leadership.
So a stripped down version of the hawks recorded this lp,Adrian Shaw from Magic Muscle was recruited on bass and added his subtle nimble bass lines to this in my opinion the last great Hawkwind album.

As with the previous lp ASTONISHING SOUNDS... Bob Calvert is lead vocalist and lyricist and has a ball.The title track is a short simple 3 chord classic with funny satirical lyrics.Opener "Spirit Of The Age" tells of an androids romantic dilemma with great trancey effects and fantastic backing vocals,what a great fuckin' song.

Keyboardist/violinist Simon House was Hawkwinds secret weapon contributing his amazing talents to the 9 minute apocalyptic belter "Damnation Alley" with its great synth breakdown.
His own "Forge Of Vulcan" instrumental sounds like Krautrock.
"Hassan I Sabha" has Houses middle eastern violin backing Calverts Black September rants.The song is prescient of islamic terrorism,Iraqi wars and oil.

Calverts lyrics and vocals have never been better,gone are the cosmic/Moorcock words of old and his witty intelligent observations compliment Brocks new wave guitars/music.

You have to check oot this lp "Hawkwind go new wave" was a great idea resulting in a truly beautiful album start to finish

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