Product Format: CD
** Regular Stock Item **Price: £10.83 (exc)
£12.99 (inc)
Qty:
This HAWKWIND offshoot was a HUGE selling release at CDS Towers when we first had it back in 2006 - Now it’s back in stock after a very long absence!
The 2006 project led by former HAWKWIND and STAR NATION guitarist: Jerry Richards, who is now the driving force behind the HAWKLORDS!
Together with a string of other musicians (including Ron Tree and Simon House) they made a Space-Rock album that’s more than a bit special, and with more variation to it than most. Across 9 tracks, you’ll find a real mix of styles, but with a musical consistency that will astound even the most skeptical of Space-Rock fans!
Openning with: ‘Separation By Skin’, you are taken on a magic carpet ride that starts out in the middle of a busy Middle-Eastern bazaar, where percussive rhythms, synthesizers and guitars with added samples and effects join Simon House’s sinuous violin work to take you over a hazy horizon, with glimpses of vocal and sax appearing briefly along the way. At its peak, this track becomes a molten psychedelic cauldron of vibrant bombastic sound, with the voice of Ron Tree just managing to squeeze through with his spoken lyric. A strong and totally original opener!
Tree is again at the microphone for the five-minute: ‘Eight & One’, a much more mainstream cut (with a catchy chorus) than the opener. The track starts almost a bit like: ‘Hurry On Sundown’, but gathers pace with some stirring rhythm section playing. When the instrumental break comes along, you get slight glimpses of early JETHRO TULL, mainly because of the dual flute & electric guitar work. Tree’s softer-moving-stronger style vocal provides the main focus on a song that sounds so much like an invocation of the early seventies and yet so fresh at the same time - Another positively faultless track!
After a sonic collage intro to the seven-minute: ‘Back Seat Angel’, another rolling rhythm enters and strides along into a wonderful piece of tranced-out Space-Rock bliss, with a driving rhythmic flow to die for and a really catchy melodic presence. A Tom Waits-esque (although not as raw) voice from Steve Swindells takes the song by the scruff of the neck and delivers a strong vocal with a bluesy feel. Synthesizers fill the background and the rhythms become more sublime as the track cruises forward on smooth multi-layers of sonic magic, the vocal interacting with the instrumental textures and giving an almost Moby-like feel to the song at times – Classy stuff this!
The feel, and to a degree, sound of this track, is carried forward onto: ‘Thin Air’ - a rather stunning song with a big organ backdrop and a fantastic line in Space-Rock guitar work. Again the vocal comes from Steve Swindells, only here, what starts out as a song, soon leads into this cauldron of guitars, rolling drums, pounding bass, and an almost seventies PINK FLOYD styled sea of multi-layers. With Swindell’s fine vocal arrangement lodged somewhere in the middle, five magnificent minutes of music unfold, with cool guitar work weaving its way round a tight bass and drum sound. Samples and a solid guitar riff drives ‘Digital Age’ into being, and this is very much a rocking homage to HAWKWIND and doesn’t sound a million miles away from say: ‘Needle Gun’ or the Calvert-penned: ‘Ejection’, being every bit as powerful and addictive, with solid bass and drums, distant squonking sax, and all the feel of classic ‘Capt Lockheed’ material. This track is totally addictive space-rock of the head-banging, body shaking kind, with a hook line to die for as well! An echoed-up Ron Tree vocal sprinkled with all manner of coloured synthy effects adds the acid laced icing to this thoroughly excellent space bun J - If there were to be single for this album – this is it! For ‘Wheels-Part 2/We Took The Car’, the addictive riffing gives the initial impression of classic HAWKWIND-esque seventies Space-Rock as the eight-minute cut starts out with over two minutes of instrumental space that really gets into a hot groove. The guitars sprawl out over a backdrop of spiralling, swooping synthesizers and effects, with a tight driving force rhythm from the bass and drums moving it along at a nippy pace. That first part reminds you of the rolling riffing of: ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’, and should make any seventies Space-Rock fan go weak at the knees for sure. At around three minutes in, the pace decelerates, and Swindells’ voice re-enters for an echoed semi-spoken, phased-out vocal, to intone the lyrics over samples and rhythms in a haze of vocal space. The guitar riff fires-up again at the back, synths swirl even further out, then the band slowly builds in volume and intensity to eventually surge into another riff laden two minutes of driving, head-expanding, guitar-led Space-Rock that strides out to amazing effect, this time with vocals remaining but all but drowned in the thick fog of guitars - Great stuff that all HAWK-fans will love, and then some!
‘Discovery: The Quest Begins’ is a two and a half minute atmospheric sonic collage from Richards that sounds like its an audio extract from a sci-fi film. This segues directly into the ten minute: ‘Liquid Crystal Clear’, which opens in a panorama of choral synths, then light rolling bass and slow crunching drums form a slow train like rhythm in the background, with soaring, almost glissando-like guitars joining the horizons of keyboards to open out into a haunting passage of soundscaping filled with gorgeous drifting cosmic patterns and layers. A Steve Swindells vocal then emerges to take the track on into more focused song territory (sounding at times a little similar to Arthur Brown), as the anthem rises up and fills every part of the ether to magical degree. Over the next few minutes the track gathers pace and develops into a massive swarm of kaleidoscopic synths, guitars and percussion layers, with the sounds intensifying even further as this mid-paced, huge-sounding slice of space-rock rises up, into an ocean of sound that washes over you like a huge tidal wave, and it’s a stunning experience for all that. As it all draws to a close with a minute of ambient effects, stuttering guitars and pulsing violins, as the final track starts out in cosmic territory with the synths and space guitars of the six-minute instrumental: ‘New Light’. Here, fantastic keyboard work generates the main melody line and atmospheric backdrop, which is set against a slowly constructed laid back rhythm.
After three minutes, the lead guitar emerges and commands the way of this instrumental by slowly moving it up into the heavens with some particularly scorching playing set against a horizon of building chords and melodies.
This takes the piece on to a fantastic climax that just lifts the roof off and drags you out into the universe - Hell, if this is the new Space-Rock… pass me the joint man and give me more!!!
Overall, this is one amazing album – not a track out of place, not a less than engaging second on the entire thing. But there’s something much more than just space-rock going on here, and with a quality of playing, production, writing and arranging that is truly breathtaking, this music is both original and, at times, familiar, but always consistently enjoyable and totally cohesive throughout – a real gem!
EARTH LAB: ELEMENT Track List:
01. Earth – Separation By Skin (7:05)
02. Earth – Eight & One (5:06)
03. Air – Back Seat Angel (7:48)
04. Thin Air (5:09)
05. Fire – Digital Age (4:32)
06. Fire – Wheels Part 2-We Took The Car (7:44)
07. Water – Discovery: Quest Begins (2:41)
08. Water – Liquid Crystal Clear (10:32)
09. Quintessence – New Light (5:46)
TPT – 56:26