Saturday 27 August 2022

Doremi Fasol Latido - HAWKWIND***

Doremi was the first album of space rockers Hawkwind to feature Lemmy as the replacement bass player. Although he stayed with the group for a few years, they were not a natural outlet for his talents, in contrast to his next band Motorhead. (UK:14)

“Typically for Hawkwind, the album is a sprawling, ambiguous astral road-trip in terms of structure - the songs are all distinct, but they flow into one another as once cohesive whole, which suits the pulsing bass and drums and the swirling, sweeping synthesisers.”

“Hawkwind were a great experimental rock band. They were able to juxtapose a primal, simplistic and quite frankly low-brow thud-chant on Time We Left This World Today with some mind-accosting dissonant experimental instrumentation.”

“Arguably the heaviest rock album of all time. Hawkwind's Doremi succeeds both as heavy metal and space-rock in equal measure. Lemmy's rumbling bass lines are augmented by fuzzed and wah-wah electric guitars, as thunderous drums keep the tribal beat going.”

Brainstorm is a great freak-out hard rock riff-based space song, especially when the vocals stop, the guitar harmonics come in, and the noise generator merges with the organ. As strange chanting vocals join the mix, and the bass gets jazzy with notes that don't seem to belong to any harmonic pattern. Here, as elsewhere, Hawkwind kiss the cheeks of prog, nod in the direction of punk, and suitably update krautrock.”

“Hawkwind's third album sees the group struggling against difficult circumstances and turning these problems into opportunities. For starters, it's the first album with Lemmy on bass - an instrument he wasn't used to, having learned to play lead guitar, with the result that his playing is somewhat unorthodox on here.”

“So bad it's good. It's like watching the first Star Trek series; I do it for the laughs, not because I want to go on an intergalactic journey. Time We Left This World Today is a good example of this with some pretty lame vocals. Brainstorm and Lord Of Light are mind-numbingly repetitive, yet I wouldn't change a thing about either. Keep an ear out for the One Change transition, a rare speck of beauty here.”

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