Hawkwind (UK)Doremi Fasol Latido (1972)Genres: space rock, hard rock, psychedelic rockThis one is a natural follow-up to ”In Search of Space” for good and bad. The style is very alike and spacey. “Brainstorm” is a grand opener in style with “You Shouldn’t Do That” from the year before. But “Lord of Light” sounds like an attempt to compose a “Master of the Universe” volume two, naturally such moves fail almost every time and this is no exception, it’s totally unnecessary and together with the acoustic “Space Is Deep” the album’s low point.
Otherwise “Doremi Fasol Latido” is a good album with heavy saxophone jammish songs mixed with Brock’s heavy guitar sawing/riffing – paired with a couple of acoustic or more experimental ones. In other words it’s just like on “In Search of Space”. And Lemmy’s acoustic “The Watcher” is better than it’s reputation.
So nothing really new on this album; which makes it easier to understand the strive for change on “Hall of the Mountain Grill”. But “Doremi Fasol Latido” is still a good album of psychedelic heavy metal space rock.
Hawkwind could be described as a mix of early Pink Floyd and early Motorhead, and at their best they blow both away. This album is like any other early Hawkwind album: Longer songs following the patented Hawkwind formula of rough and repetitious guitar grinding combined with electronic space sounds, as well as some shorter songs were the electric guitars are replaced by acoustic ones. And as usual the songs that do not drift too far away from the formula are the most effective. After all, this is what Hawkwind does best, or to be frank; this is the only thing that Hawkwind does good.
The best track (and the reason to choose this album over its close relatives) “Time we Left the World Today” mainly follows the formula, but adds some variation in tempo to it. It might thus not be the quintessential Hawkwind song (that would without a doubt be “You Shouldn’t do That” from “In Search of Space”), but it might just be their best.