THE FUTURE NEVER WAITS

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Live this should be a real stunner and could easily take you into something else thats guitar powered such as ‘Brainstorm’ or ‘Master of the Universe’. Its not ‘Sonic Attack’ or 10 Seconds of Forever’, but a modern update that certainly doesn’t sit easy and the lyrical content should give you pause to think and reflect.

HAWKWIND – The Future Never Waits Album Review : HAWKWIND – The Future Never Waits

Second track ‘The End’ is a more recognisable Hawkwind sound, a driving guitar riff and drums with superb overlays of synthesisers giving occasional echos of ‘Urban Guerrilla’ and other Hawkwind favourites. Elsewhere on the album we have jazz fused drum and bass with saxophone and piano breaks in the song 'They Are Easy to Distract'.Compilation albums listed are those that have been compiled by record labels that had Hawkwind under contract to produce a series of albums. The one constant is Dave Brock, who has the uncanny knack of selecting the right band members for a given album or period of time. Maybe the Hawkwind spaceship has taken off in a new direction, to explore new territories and sounds.

‎The Future Never Waits by Hawkwind on Apple Music

A truly immersive piece of work that reveals more of itself with each listen, it’s easily – to my fevered mind at least – the best thing this band has come up with in decades.The album features founding Hawkwind member Dave Brock, alongside Richard Chadwick, Magnus Martin, Doug MacKinnon and Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis. The band’s 35th studio album is an outstanding progression to their varied and celebrated catalogue. You get the impression that it’s a track that could have no end; an improvised groove that could take off anywhere, gentle pulses decorated with squeaks and whines as an alternative the relentless pumping riffs. They make use of piano and saxophone, which is to the fore, ably supported by the other instruments. It finishes with the first of several spoken word segments which add a disturbed sense of unbalance to the album, and that is meant in a positive complimentary way!

Hawkwind: The Future Never Waits, CD Edition - Cherry Red Records Hawkwind: The Future Never Waits, CD Edition - Cherry Red Records

It has long been a practice of theirs to incorporate live recordings (albeit with studio overdubs) of previously unreleased tracks on studio albums (for example Hall of the Mountain Grill), and studio recordings of previously unreleased tracks on live albums (for example Palace Springs).Despite a run of albums, many bands would sell their children to have released, they’ve never come close to being ‘stars’ or lauded with critical kudos, but for fifty-plus years (was it really 1972 I first saw Hawkwind?

Hawkwind – The Future Never Waits (Cherry Red Records) Hawkwind – The Future Never Waits (Cherry Red Records)

The ominous spoken intro to Rama and the hypnotic vibe they channel on I’m Learning to Live Today gets us back on a more comfortable track that’s not fallen far from the tree pulsing away with vigour. It is the next two tracks that throw a curve-ball at the listener; Aldous Huxley and They Are So Easily Distracted have a more jazz influenced style, which is almost laid-back and could be described as having something of a lounge feel. In the early 1980s, they produced a studio album and live album under contract to Bronze in 1980, then three studio albums for Rockfield Studios owner Kingsley Ward's Active/RCA. The Beginning’ is unlikely to be played on the radio (although it would be good for someone to play it!A band for whom the groove is key to their popularity, in 2023, they’ve shown that they’re not averse to slipping out now and again to see what’s over the parapet. Opening track The Future Never Waits delivers a ten minute instrumental space-age march, which morphs into the guitar-driven The End, featuring Dave Brock’s trademark vocals and chugging machine gun riffs. Rama' also visits this particular atmosphere with an eight-minute-long version that is guitar washed, maybe more subdued than 'The End', but has a great 80’s sounding synth solo in the middle. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net. There’s some soaring guitar soloing to hold the whole piece together and then we are brought into ‘Outside Of Time’, a longer piece, with occasional spoken word and electronica spitting up the musical passages.