New Hawkwind Album “Stories From Time and Space” – A Stellar Concept Journey
Legendary British space rock pioneers Hawkwind have returned with their latest conceptual masterpiece “Stories From Time and Space.” This new album serves as the follow-up to their highly acclaimed 2022 release “The Future Never Waits,” which was hailed as one of Hawkwind’s best albums in their over 50-year career.
The album arrives in a beautiful digipak package with glossy sci-fi artwork and a booklet containing the lyrics and credits. As described in the liner notes, “Stories From Time and Space” takes the listener on an interconnected journey where “our lives can’t last forever” and we seek rejuvenation by traveling via starship to the planet Heaven. But the journey doesn’t go as planned, with the ship crashing and androids malfunctioning, leaving the crew homesick but determined to find a way home.
The tracks explore existential themes like the finite nature of life, love across space and time, humanity’s wasteful destruction of planets, and worlds frozen in cosmic stasis. While the opening tracks “Our Lives Can’t Last Forever” and “The Starship (One Love One Life)” start gently with melancholy melodies, the album kicks into classic Hawkwind gear with the driving “What Are We Going To Do While We’re Here?”
Highlights include the epic “What Are We Going To Do…” with its blistering guitar solo, the fast and furious “The Tracker,” the beautifully plaintive “Underwater City,” leader Dave Brock’s gorgeous synth instrumental “The Night Sky,” the hypnotic groover “Traveler of Time and Space,” and the slow-burning closer “Stargazers.”
Recorded by the current lineup of Dave Brock, Richard Chadwick, Thighpaulsandra, and Magnus Martin, “Stories From Time and Space” is a conceptual tour-de-force only a band like Hawkwind could deliver at this stage of their legendary career.
While Brock’s health issues are a concern, this album shows the indomitable creative spirit still burning bright in the Hawkwind universe. For fans and open-minded space rock explorers, this is an essential voyage into the great cosmic unknown.
Phil Aston | Now Spinning Magazine
