Elsewhere on the album we have jazz fused drum and bass with saxophone and piano breaks in the song 'They Are Easy to Distract'. Other tracks like ‘Rama (The Prophecy)’ and ‘I’m Learning To Live Today’ sit tightly in the Hawkwind groove, providing old and new fans alike with the kind of intense and concentrated fusion of musical styles they’ve come to expect and celebrate. Since then, the band have recorded for numerous independent labels, including Flicknife, their former manager Douglas Smith's label GWR, Essential (through Castle Communications), and from 1994-97 their own label EBS administered by Smith. I found it to be not an instant hit, which in my mind is good because it's a grower and those kind of records have the longest legs in my experience.

HAWKWIND | New Album The Future Never Waits …out now!

It's hard, it's heavy, it's trippy, it's everything you would come to expect of a “typical” Hawkwind sound (if there is such a thing).It appears that of late I have become the ‘go to’ reviewer for Hawkwind releases, having over a long period been involved in reviewing some of their new releases, reissues and box sets. The album features founding Hawkwind member Dave Brock, alongside Richard Chadwick, Magnus Martin, Doug MacKinnon and Tim ‘Thighpaulsandra’ Lewis.

Hawkwind | The Future Never Waits Albums Of The Week: Hawkwind | The Future Never Waits

a voice so redolent of times past that one feels it’s been there forever and will continue to be so, broadcasting from earth into the far reaches of space even after we’ve all gone. In their long career, Hawkwind have embraced psychedelia and prog, as well as influencing the 1980s Acid House scene, and elements of all these can be found on the album. Vinyl was OK except for side 1 which had some crackle and then a scratch that lasted five revolutions on the outro of the last track.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. It would have been easy to just knock out an hour or so of the space rock that made their name, but instead they sometimes lurch off into freeform jazz or bang in an unexpected sample.

Hawkwind announce new studio album The Future Never Waits Hawkwind announce new studio album The Future Never Waits

This material has been subject to many retitling, repackaging and re-issuing through different labels, leading to multitudes of cheap titles of which the band have no control. Such is the way of social media and streaming; this is the best strategy to capitalizs on any audience. Spoken word samples and poetry readings fresh from the alternative community and all of Dave Brook’s colourful friends on the fantastic 'Aldous Huxley'. The benefits of being together and playing together in the studio rather than using technological communications shines through. 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.The ambience, the samples, the electronica, the 70s fuzz, the driving bass and the poetry readings, everything you would expect, and maybe a little bit more but never staying in one place too long. It is testimony to Brock that in his more senior years he can continue his flow of ideas and song writing, which enables the band to continue to move ever forward. There’s a paucity of words on the album, with no lyrics about exploring space or discovering new worlds. Rama (The Prophecy) punches it’s way out of the reverie in exuberant fashion, Richard Chadwick‘s drums pushing the track forward relentlessly as Brock launches a beautiful guitar and vocal assault and Magnus Martin‘s keys glitter alluringly in the background.

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

Throughout the remaining tracks, the band continue to try out new styles, which are seamlessly absorbed into their signature sound. Eponymous title track ‘The Future Never Waits’ opens and reaffirms the fact the starship Hawkwind has long lurked outside the realms of mainstream acceptance. But hold on to your hats because the second track 'The End' has that familiar chugging and driving bass sound with persistent drumming speckled with weird noises and mind bending atmosphere.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. Innovative additions to the Hawkwind canon such as Aldous Huxley and They Are So Easily Distracted introduce an almost lounge-like quality, with piano, audio samples and saxophones lamenting over a futuristic backdrop and roaming guitar solos. It was probably inevitable they’d finally do a tribute to British philosopher Aldous Huxley, who drifted off this mortal on an LSD trip, as they throw in some samples that give a real sense of a fellow traveller on the astral plane. It’s merely the Hawkwind way of doing things; Trapped In The Modern Age starts with a piece of electric piano that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Supertramp album before Brock joins in with that voice, the voice that makes something, however it sounds, whatever seam of music it mines, pure ‘Wind.