SONIC ATTACK

The previous Levitation is by far my favourite Hawkwind album. Indeed, for me, Levitation stands head and shoulders above any other Hawkwind album. On Levitation, the band managed for the first time in their career to combine memorable and melodic material, excellent musicianship, and high production values in one and the same place. The line-up that recorded Levitation was a fantastic one with the legendary Ginger Baker on drums (easily the best drummer that Hawkwind ever had), the great Tim Blake on keyboards, and the superb lead guitars of Huw Lloyd-Langton in addition to Harvey Bainbridge and Dave Brock. Baker, Blake, and Lloyd-Langton were in particular essential elements in what made Levitation such a big musical success, but sadly only Lloyd-Langton remained in the line-up for the present album.

In general, I think that Hawkwind reverted somewhat to an earlier stage in their evolution with this album. The first sign of this is that they deliberately chose to open the album with a re- make that also gives the album its title. This spoken word piece that originally appeared on a live album is rather annoying and can safely be skipped. What follows is a tour de force of rather typical Hawkwind numbers. The beats are again rather repetitive, the guitar riffs rather simple, and not much to speak of in terms of memorable songs or subtle moments. Sadly one must conclude that Levitation was a one off. The New Wave/Punk approach of PXR5 and Quark, Strangeness And Charm is thankfully largely absent as well as the worst excesses of early albums like Doremi Fasol Latido and In Search Of Space, but there is still rather little else to be said in favour of Sonic Attack. The songs all sound very much the same and there is not much variation and diversity to speak of.

A decent album, but very much of a letdown after the excellent Levitation

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