MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

A piecemeal compilation this, comprising tracks from the 1971-1974 period. As such it does a far more thorough job of summing one period of Hawkwind's music than the other compilation I own, Epocheclipse: The Ultimate Best Of, which tries to condense nearly 30 years of music into 18 tracks, and ends up pleasing nobody. Even though I'm not fond of the performances of some of these songs on the Space Ritual album, I do enjoy this presentation of the studio versions of Master Of The Universe, Brainstorm and the oh-so- insistent Orgone Accumulator.

The subtle, sweeping sound affects that colour the pieces here (and got lost on Space Ritual) make Masters Of The Universe a worthwhile introduction to the more improvisation- orientated side of Hawkwind, although I'd still recommend heading directly to the superior Hall of The Mountain Grill or Warrior On The Edge Of Time albums. I could do without the Robert Calvert poetic rants (although I do admit that this one, Sonic Attack is the very best of them) while It's So Easy is an atypical song that takes a dreamy start and turns into a borderline glam-rock tune, albeit one with a psych guitar-freak out stuck in the middle! To round things off, we have Lost Johnny, a driving biker anthem that is bassist Lemmy Kilminster's finest moment.

This 40 minute trip works quite well, and made me realise that with Hawkwind, the dosage is of particular importance. Too much of the good thing turns me off, but I'm always tuned in to this. ... 52% on the MPV scale