NIK - Space Ritual

[Mike Montfort]

Well yea sure if you want an old tired retreaded repetitions of how the band
played in the past, then you are sure to be disappointed in SpaceRitual.  Of
course if you are looking for that in Hawkwind you will be to.

However if you are interested in how one of the founding musicians is
reinterpreting some of the older songs, many of which he cowrote, then by
all means open your mind and open your ears. The jazzy feel is brilliant!
Not comepletely unlike a couple of the tracks off the new Hawkwind samples
IMHO.

Personally I think the recording of the Roadburn Festival is one of the
better things I've heard in a great while. Yea I can pull out any old live
disc and hear the same basic version of the same basic songs from any era I
want.

Here I can hear a new interpretation by a very tight band

That goes for Hawkwind too by the way.  Their sound today is nothing like it
was back in the alleged "good old days" which I never attended, but have
heard, and really were not that good technically. Frankly they are much
better musicians now anyway.

Well that's my two cents on this bruhaha on Nik and SpaceRitual. Boiled down
it is this: if you are looking for a bunch of loose muscians slagging away
at perfectly reproduced old Hawk tunes from a by gone ear then this is not
for you.

Mike