PLANETFALL

I was really looking forward to this release. Space Rock with mellotron is a combination I can't get enough of. Andy Thompson the man behind the web-site Planetmellotron is the synth, moog and mellotron player. The music on this disc I would describe as very HAWKWIND sounding with more of a metal edge.The synths are firing off all over the place and the vocals are almost yelling over the soundscape. Unfortunately this wasn't a good listen for me as the sounds I mentioned seemed to be relentless for over 76 minutes. I did like the guitar a lot but I couldn't even hear the mellotron except for at the start of one song. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Andy Thompson gave a little review of this album on his site. He mentioned that 15 minutes of this album should have been chopped off and that during the mixing of this record they mixed the mellotron and moog either too low or completely out. Andy says this happened "while I wasn't looking." By the way he has since left the band. Too bad about that and the mixing. By the way he gives this record 3 out of 5 stars as well.

The highlight for me is the song "Expanding Universe". This is the song where you can actually hear the mellotron to open with some great sounding guitar which has a lower sounding tone. Even the vocals seem better on this track. It shifts up a gear after 3 minutes to a nice and heavy sound. Check out the guitar 12 1/2 minutes in. Nice.

I'm sure HAWKWIND fans will eat this up, and it is a good record, but compared to THE FIRST BAND FROM OUTERSPACE and other psychedelic bands (too many to mention) this was a let down.

I could not stand this album.

This is very poppy shallow space-rock (or modern rock as it would seem to me) and it goes on for far too long. One of the things that annoyed me most was the random synth sound effects - they are relentless for the entire album and they get old really fast, when they first started I thought they were pretty good and then the second song came in and they started back up again and I was slightly perturbed, by the third song I was already annoyed so you can imagine how I was feeling by the end of the album. I never really got a progressive vibe or detected much progressiveness in the music either which is odd considering how there are 2 epics on the album, I'd listen to it again to pay closer attention by I'm really not sure I want to.

Stay away from this one folks you're better off sticking with HAWKWIND.