DARK SUN

Without wanting to sound too harsh this album proves the one thing I was afraid of. Dark Sun are nothing more than a Hawkwind tribute band. Ice Ritual (sounds familiar, eh?) is a live album, with only one Dark Sun song. The rest of the stuff is Hawkwind's material. One cannot help but wonder what is the purpose of this album?

As far as I know, Hawkwind have released 15-30 live albums throughout their exhausting career, so what on earth can Dark Sun give us that those albums don't already have? Well, beats me, to be honest. The fact that they managed to get Nik Turner to do the vocals here is great and it's the one thing that separates Ice Ritual from other Hawkwind tribute albums. But still... If Dark Sun would've tried to do something really daring and new with these songs, I could understand the need to release this album, but no... The songs are more or less carbon copy's of the original versions.

But let's put all this aside for a second. Had this been a Hawkwind album or had the songs been Dark Sun's own material, I would have given this at least three stars. Maybe even the fourth one on a sunny day. The band plays really well, with great, warm interplay and the whole concert has a very energetic feel. Turner performs his duties nicely, although he sings out of tune a couple of times. This must have been a fun gig to attend.

The album has many highlights, including D-Rider, Assault And Battery, Golden Void and the only Dark Sun track, Dream Circuit. It's actually a studio track, showing their more electronic side and reminding me more of Ozric Tentacles and Hidria Spacefolk than Hawkwind.

So, all I can say that this is an interesting live album, and it breaks my heart to give this album such a low rating, but in my eyes (and ears), Ice Ritual is unfortunately just a pointless release. If you still want to hear a live album full of Hawkwind's classics, then by all means, do check this out as this is better than some of Hawkwind's own live albums, but I'm afraid I cannot recommend Ice Ritual to others.

I believe Dark Sun are making a new album right now. Hopefully they'll try something more daring this time.

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...)