FEED YOUR MIND

When I first heard Feed Your Mind, I was severely disappointed. I had heard good things about this band, and was expecting a crazy psychedelic space-rock trip along the lines of Hawkwind - and that's exactly what I got. What I did not expect is the album to be so terribly derivative.

Feed Your Mind has all the same ingredients that made Hawkwind so succesful, the spacey synths, almost grunge-like heavy guitars, strong vocals, even the "space-whispers" are included in the opening track Tiny The Man. It took me a lot of spins to accept this and let go of my frustration, but when I finally did, I really enjoyed what I heard.

Dark Sun's music is at the same time a bit heavier than Hawkwind's, but it's also more pop-oriented, for example Tiny The Man & the title track have some seriously catchy sections that you could sing along to. The album flows nicely from start to finish, and Dark Sun actually managed to dodge the mistakes Hawkwind often made - there are no fillers (well perhaps Phantastica, but it's not exactly a "song", more of an intro).

My favorites are Tiny The Man, Black Spires and The Next Step which is a haunting, nicely flowing calm (almost) instrumental, with lots of hypnotic synths and strong melodies. It's strongly reminiscent of Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd, maybe that's why I like it so much, as I prefer PF over Hawkwind. Astral Magic sounds so much like Hawkwind that it could be straight from Warrior On The Edge Of Time and no one would notice that it's not their track...

In conclusion, I could say that this is a very enjoyable effort, but nevertheless, just a bit too derivative to make this anything but a good copy cat. Worth a spin, though, for those who crave for more Hawkwind-like space-rock (assuming you can find this somewhere...)

DARK SUN are a Psychedelic band from Finland who are greatly influenced by HAWKWIND. So no surprise as to their instrumental sound, but the vocals weren't what I expected. They really reminded me of some of the singers from eighties pop bands and a lot of the time it's like he's yelling the lyrics.

"Tiny The Man" has a spacey into (surprise !) for almost 2 minutes when guitar, drums and vocals come in changing the melody completely. Lots of spacey synths and the guitar sounds good. "Feed Your Mind" sounds like he's yelling the vocals. Good song though. His singing here reminds me of the singer for CHALK CIRCLE. "Black Spires" opens with a guitar melody as drums and vocals come in. The guitar is great as are the bass lines. "Our Man Inside" has such a full sound. The guitar solos late in the song are terrific.

"Astral Magic" has a catchy guitar melody that builds. HAWKWIND lives through this song. "Phantastica" opens with water flowing and vocals that echo. This is a cool but short song. "Abduction Files" opens with lots of spacey synths and slow playing guitar that lasts for almost 3 minutes then it speeds up. Some spoken words later as well as some great guitar. "The Next Step" opens with synths firing off, as the sound of a countdown for a launch is heard. Later in the song is a synth / guitar melody that reminds me a lot of PINK FLOYD.

So overall I like it, just not too fond of the vocals. It's worth checking out if your a Space- Rock fan.

This Finnish band is technically quite interesting, as the guys create a purist vintage space rock sound, and voyage in aesthetically pleasant cosmic musical realms. But what troubles me with this record is the too evident effort of replicating Hawkwind's sound. I have seen the band on concert stage few times, and once half of the material was their own, and half of them Hawkwind covers. So in my opinion with their good skills and carefully considered style they reach more interesting levels when innovating more personal elements to open jams. On this record, the output staying in lesser personal paths, most of the compositions being pastiches of their own innovator's songs. Though this works well on visual-illuminated dance halls, I would prefer their later released underground jams for listening at home. Surely some pleasant space rock also on this one, if the listener won't mind the similarities of their innovator band, but I would recommend searching the later rehearsal improvisation discs for the ultimate spacey experiences.