ONWARD

Onward continues the general approach Hawkwind established on Blood of the Earth, creating a morass of spacey electronic ambience from which songs occasionally emerge and fade back into. It's from the same lineup as made Blood of the Earth, and Hawkwind clearly have benefitted from this moment of stability - rare as it is in their tumultuous existence. Again, it's a mixture of original material and re-recorded old stuff, but as on Blood of the Earth the new stuff predominates, and the rerecordings represent such radical re-imaginings that they don't feel redundant.

There's a clutch of live tracks on here which are supposedly bonus tracks, though I don't think there's any issue of the album which doesn't include them (is it really a "bonus" if everyone who acquires the album gets them), which nudge the album into double disc territory on CD, providing a bit more variation in texture which helps stop this from merely being Blood of the Earth 2: Still Bleeding. On the whole, another solid Hawkwind release which makes the case for them continuing to be a compelling studio project as well as an evergreen live act.