Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Hawkwind - Space Ritual CD (album) cover

SPACE RITUAL

Hawkwind

 

Psychedelic/Space Rock

4.21 | 323 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Atkingani
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
3 stars "Space Ritual" was a long-time wished gift that I managed to fulfill a couple of years ago - CD version. Well, I knew all the songs but from different sources (albums, tapes, bootlegs) and I was eager to share this emotional audio-visual-cerebral experience as a whole. Things didn't run the way I intended; "Space Ritual" is in many ways disappointing.

Very keen to HAWKWIND's live tracks I am until now looking for the warm and sometimes rowdy sounds of band's audience but instead I heard nothing, at least in this CD version - remastering could kill really.

With few and honorable exceptions everything seems too much aseptical, very clean, very neat to conform to HAWKWIND usual and appreciable dirty patterns. Poetry insertions which might provide great moments in the gigs appear a bit useless and out-of-room here. Anyway, we find great space-rock songs in "Space Ritual", enough to save the work, like:

'Born to go' provides a good start after 1 entire minute of non-sense noise that goes by the name of 'Earth calling'. 'Down through the night' although an average song shows some traces of the live action and that improves the hearing feeling.

'Space is deep' loses its meaning specially when compared with studio version, but it's still a catchy song. 'Electronic no. 1' presents some audience sounds but its main feature is to introduce 'Orgone accumulator', one of the best song ever presented by the band that goes splendidly here. The always argued band's musicianship crumbles within this track - a fine album moment, indeed.

Either versions of 'Master of Universe' are interesting - no chances to err when you have fair tunes in hands. 'You shouldn't do that' is hot, surely due to the public participation, seen completely at last (and it's meant to be a bonus track). If all the songs in "Space Ritual" were released that way the album should grow intensely.

Balancing the good tracks with the dispensable parts of "Space Ritual" I'd say we get a tie but for sentimental reasons I'll lift the rating and conclude that we are facing a good output. Total: 3.

Atkingani | 3/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this HAWKWIND review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.