Earth Calling/Born To Go/Down Through The Night/The Awakening/Lord Of Light/The Black Corridor/Space Is Deep/Electronic No.1/Orgone Accumulator/Upside Down/10 Seconds Of Forever/Brainstorm/7 By 7/Sonic Attack/ Time We Left This World Today/Master Of The Universe/Welcome To The Future
The double LP Space Ritual was the first live release from the space-rock pioneers. Hawkwind. Recorded in 1972 at the Brixton Sundown and Liverpool stadium it showcases the distinctive bass playing of new member Lemmy. (US:179 UK:9)
“It is generally recognised that this is the place to start and (for some) the place to end with Hawkwind, as it acts as a greatest hits package of the period when Lemmy was anchoring the band with a huge (and creative) bass end.”
“Whereas many psychedelic groups of the early 1970s were either going explicitly in a prog-rock direction or more focused on texture than anything resembling rock music, Hawkwind, on their massive live double-LP Space Ritual, rock first and add texture later. Thanks in large part to recent recruit Lemmy, a rudimentary guitarist moved over to bass when he joined Hawkwind, his fundamentally solid slabs of rhythm guitar-style bass strumming behind the rest of the group allow them to, when the moment is right, explore the edges of psychedelia, generating swirling keyboard, guitar, saxophone and flute solos atop the group's driving rhythm section.”
“What we have here is the usual Hawkwind tripped-out space rock, but it's given such a thunderous, bombastic rendition that it's hard not to see most of these songs as the definitive versions of the material in question. Here, spaciness is achieved not through gentle, tranquil synth lines, but through sheer noise and hypnotic rhythms.”
“For many, this is the ultimate expression of space-rock, and the ultimate summary of still-somewhat-underrated cosmic rock legends Hawkwind. They take their already epic inspired space-rock, and put it in a live setting, with thunderous echoing vocals, twisted guitars and extended psychedelic jams. While they were already a great band, and would continue to be so, Space Ritual is essentially the album that consolidated them as masters of space-rock.”
“Hawkwind weren't the only band to mix prog-rock, heavy metal, stoner-rock, space- rock, hippy ideologies and lots and lots of acid, but they were the best at it. As a result Space Ritual is an all-out audio assault. This is a journey through a sea of spacey noises, with islands of spoken word and hard riffs poking up once in a while.”
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