Hawkwind ~ Spirit of the Age (Anthology 1976 – 1984)

New Esoteric subsidiary label Atomhenge has been set up to re-release all of Hawkwinds post 1976 albums up to 1997, fully remastered with bonus tracks and restored artwork. Those will start to be re-issued early in 2009, but prior to that the label has compiled two 3CD box sets. The first covers the period 1976 to 1984 and the second, titled “The Dream Goes On” covers 1985 to 1997. The “Spirit of the Age” anthology is noteworthy as it covers the successful period when the band were signed to the Charisma label, after being with United Artists since their inception. My favourite albums from the Charisma years were “Quark, Strangeness and Charm” and the excellent “PXR5”. The latter contains some of my favourite post-UA Hawkwind tracks like “Jack of Shadows” and the wonderful ”High Rise”. Listening to this stuff again I had forgotten what an excellent lyricist and vocalist Robert Calvert was. The band at this time sounded on occasion like a post-LSD Roxy Music but there is still no mistaking Dave Brocks riffing and the bubbling synths are trademark Hawkwind.

The remastering on all tracks is by Ben Wiseman from the Audio Archiving Company who has kept things very much at low volume, which is the antithesis to a lot of mastering these days. The 48 page booklet has lots of archival photographs and detailed text by Ian Abrahams who has written a book about the band. This is a superb compilation and suitably illustrates how surprisingly varied Hawkind sounded during the period covered here.