LEVITATION

Wow! What an amazing album! I knew almost all songs but never listened to them gathered together until some good soul lent me the fresh from factory CD. I heard and heard and after all I heard a little more.

The first thing that I noticed was the line-up with Ginger Baker and Tim Blake joining Dave Brock and friends to add an extra gas to the band; second was that although they still rock a lot, the ambience is less dirty and it may concern the ones who love more aseptic stuff - by the way I like those dirt ambienced rocks like Floyd's 'The Nile Song' or Beatles' 'Helter Skelter' or many Hawkwind previous material. Also the instrumentation is great, the songs are generally average to good and the arrangements plus production are fine. Probably the second best Hawkwind album - losing only to "Warrior On The Edge Of Time", their 1975 jewel.

'Levitation' opens the album splendidly, there's an aroma of good old band stuff; the dialog between bass and guitar is awesome; vocals and drums do their job finely. One of the best songs in Hawkwind's roster.

'Motorway City' is another great song, competing with the previous track for the glory of being album's best. Guitar solo is fantastic and together with keyboards suite shows clearly that they make progressive rock, however more rock than progressive but who cares; the deal is to enjoy.

'Psychosis', a short song with fair keyboard effects, starts the intermediary instrumental block, doing the transition to 'World of tiers', a hard-space rock with pretty playing by band members, which is followed by 'Prelude', another short song where sound effects return in a softer manner, connecting with the next song, 'Space chase', that keeps the overall shaking atmosphere delightfully.

'Who's gonna win the war', starts the catchy section of the album and is the closest that Hawkwind get to a ballad, but the sound is direct and steady; the softness is continued with another instrumental song, 'The 5th second of forever' which begins with fine acoustic guitar just to give room to a more agitated section, 'Dust of time', the original ending track, completes the tender climate pleasantly, good guitars and percussion, vocals accordingly, worthy keyboard effects.

The bonus track, 'Nuclear toy' is a good addition, the song begins calmly with hard drumming and odd vocals, speeding up with hard guitar and bass providing a good farewell to the album.

No eyes blinking, this album is an excellent addition to any prog or rock music collection. Total: 4.