Hawkwind - The Future Never Waits.

HAWKWIND

THE FUTURE NEVER WAITS

(Cherry Red)

By Paul Davies

Not so much a (Devon) cottage industry but a fun factory hive of activity of late. Following on the winged heels of their previous studio album, ‘Somnia’, released in 2021, and 22’s live double album ‘We Are Looking In On You’, Hawkwind returns with their seventh studio release - 35th in total - since signing on with Cherry Red in 2016.

‘The Future Never Waits’ is a seventh-heaven sonic exploration in Space Rock: 'The End’, ‘USB1’, 'Rama (The Prophecy)', 'I'm Learning To Live Today', 'Trapped In This Modern Age'; Ambient and Trance: 'The Future Never Waits’, 'Outside Of Time'; Electro Jazz: 'They Are So Easily Distracted' and Psych Rock on 'The Beginning'. There’s also a cautionary narrative thread of AI computers controlling mankind across these tracks. Put together, these musical territories encapsulate the soundscapes this band has adventured in since their eponymous recording inception in 1970.        

Vocal duties seem to be evenly split between Dave Brock and his trusty musical lieutenant Magnus Martin across the hazy atmospherics of this deeply immersive recording Third song in and there's a homage to the godfather of psychedelics on ‘Aldous Huxley’. It’s punctuated by taped archive interviews with Huxley and his wife underscored by sinuous jazz piano and ambient tones. The sentiment of which is not lost on willing space cadet, Dave Brock, throughout his own life dabbling in psychedelics. In continuing to do so, this album reconciles all the musical elements and philosophy that made Hawkwind the cosmic entity it is today. The trip goes on...