I am almost sorry (just kidding) to review this album. It is another one of those classic ones than fully deserves plenty of your attention. Such album that reminds my youth.

This work is full of fantastic prog / classical moments and some might call it superfluous / pompous. I just love it. The intro of the opening number is such a beauty. as the great vocal work of course. But this is just a constant from the band. To be able to rely on Annie is so easy.

Great melodies and sumptuous piano playing is such a pleasure to listen to. Every second of this great album is of course such a wonderful travel in time, such a great remembering. A song as "Trip To The Fair" is just a jewel. No other band could have released this one. Grandeur, classical approach, melody and more than all : superb, passionate (you know how keen I am on this topic.) Annie's vocals. A highlight of their whole work.

The band is even flirting with a more commercial sound with "The Vultures Fly High". But who could blame them? Such a great melody and upbeat approach is so appealing. Such a great introduction to the last song of the first side of this album which I really love.

I have been so in love with this album for over than thirty years and it is difficult to mention anything bad about it. "Ocean Gypsy" is such a pleasant and bombastic number. The band is again at its glory. No need to say that Annie adds so much feeling to the song.

Now comes the epic. On the original album, you could read the story of Sheherazade. I can tell you that it was quite a discovery for a sixteen years old boy. These thousands and one nights stories were quite amazing. Some might call it pompous, but my feeling has never changed since I first listened to this great song. A masterpiece of prog music? Yes, IMHHO it fully deserves this rating.

I won't describe each inch of this great song. It is full of sublime moments. Not boring for an instant. At least this is how I have felt for over thirty years. I don't know how I could have coped with these classical moments; but so it is.

Magnified music, perfect and powerful vocals, grandiose interpretation, great theme. Genuine prog music, my friends. No other words. I have never felt any weak parts in this great song. And believe me, I am rather an old folk to convince. But the complexity, the diversity, the sweetness of such a great epic is so simple to listen to.

Twenty five minutes of pleasure. What else do you need ?

This is a great album. Five star rating is not a common habit of mine. Five per cent of my reviews, maybe. But no doubt, this album is one of them. A gem. But lots of you have rated this great album as such. Do listen to this fantastic work. Their best album IMHHO.

Five stars of course.

"The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)" opens the album with electric waves, giving birth for the menacing guitar riff. Pleasantly out normal note count the chorus of voices starts to sing the theme of the song, contemplating possibilities for escaping the grey dullness of everyday life. The constructed motive morphs as a long hallucinogenic improvisation, having fine saxophone solo from Nik Turner, interesting surreal instrumental passages and reverbed echo chaotix. The song disappears in a thick wall of blasting wind, which evokes then a very beautiful and dramatic instrumental number, main melody drawn by a violin over orchestrated shimmer. Two last tracks of the first side are merged together; "D-Rider" oscillating between anxious internal depressions and relieving explosion to grandiose cosmic verse, and "Web Weaver" spinning more acoustic rock tapestries before getting lost in space.

The B-side of the vinyl starts with classic heavier rock punch of "You'd Better Believe It", dropping to infinite caverns of black vastness when the melodic phrases have been successfully computed. The album title song is a dramatic piano composition, a cosmic synthesizer orchestration bringing more dimensions to it. This is followed by Lemmy's tune "Lost Johnny" which he also signs. A quite nice rocker, predicting his upcoming Motörhead career, but maybe deviating little from the more thoughtful and highflying feeling of the other songs of the album. "Goat Willow" is just a short peculiar aural vision as an intro for album closer "Paradox", which I understood is recorded from a live concert. This song has really brilliant metaphorical lyrics, and the composition itself builds from powerful but simple minor chord progressions. The drums enter the song only after the singing is completed, opening the rockier improvisational sequence only after the beginnings recital. A set of Mellotrons have been brought to the stage also, and the farewell tune is on of the finest songs from the group I have heard.

This record introduced me to the cosmic realms of Hawkwind's spacey atmospherics and long improvisational progressions, and thus certainly affected for my own internal models regarding the expectations about the group. For a long time this along with the records "Space Ritual" and "Warrior on The Edge of Time" formed a trinity of most albums on the band's 1970's, but with more age gathered I started to find more appreciation also for the other albums of their unbalanced discography. The album also gave a very strong experience to me, motivating to search further the distant galaxies of this band's universe, and orientating my own growth towards more meditative record listening. A real classic, which I would warmly recommend to anybody interested of cosmic rock music.