Hawkwind

Space-rock and so much more.

You have it all here. Sonic Attack, reissued for its 40th anniversary on blue vinyl and with a bonus blue vinyl seven-inch (the turbulent fury of Angels Of Death b/w Transdimensional Man) is space-rock maestros Hawkwind at their most psychotically deranged, tripped-out and futuristic and deep into the bowels of how society is controlled via language (thus presaging 2021 neatly). The opening, Michael Moorcock-written title track sets the scene: the howl of betrayed generations fighting for air, like a devolved version of Peter Porter’s post-apocalyptic poem Your Attention Please!, cacophonous and distorted and chaotic.

The 81-track, six-CD retrospective is as fulsome and monolithic and progressive and spaced-out and indulgent and influential as you’d expect. In the spaces and molten guitar uplift of and (blink and you’d think it was Them), the mighty churning relentless groove of (from 1971’s ), the headsdown boogie of and the psychedelic and a thousand other minor epiphanies as well, you can hear echoes of pretty much all of modern-day rock. There’s , of course., of course (recorded live at the Greasy Truckers party, a windblown epic).