TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

Hawkwind

Psychedelic/Space Rock

2.65 | 83 ratings

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Hawkwind's most recent album, 2005's "Take Me To Your Leader", is a very worthy example of the band's brand of space-rock and a fine addition to the Hawkwind collection.

The band opens with the perennial Hawkwind classic, "Spirit of the Age" and I must admit that this is a slight irritation as far as I am concerned - surely, in the five years since the previous studio album "Space Brock" could the band not have filled an album with original material? In truth, it is not the first time that Hawkwind have pulled this trick (and I admit to being equally irritated in the past at revisits to old songs!), it is something of a "calling card" for them. Not that this is a bad version of "Spirit of the Age", quite the contrary as it has some sterling lead guitar work adorning it, it's just that when you listen to the quality of (most of) the rest of the album, you cannot understand why they do it. Anyway, rant over!

The "most of" above is there because the closing track, "A Letter to Robert", is a tad self-indulgent - presumably a homage to the late Bob Calvert, it is a spoken reminiscence of him to a backing track of synthesiser music. It is actually quite humorous and witty but I'm not sure that everyone will find it so, particularly new fans who may not know the history of the band, and it grinds the album's momentum to a sudden, unexpected halt as the closing number.

Sandwiched in between these two "book-ends" the music is splendid indeed and I have no reservations whatsoever. There is plenty of pace and invention in this space-rock showing that the band can still deliver fresh new music of high quality. Whilst it is difficult to pick a favourite from these 8 tracks, special mentions go to Alan Davey's beefy and powerful "Greenback Massacre" and Brock's clever "To Love a Machine". This "meat" of the album marks it out as an excellent Hawkwind album: it's just a shame that they are so few and far between these days.

alextorres2 | 4/5 | 2008-2-21

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