Hawkwind
Warrior On The Edge Of Time

What gusts of confusion seem to blow in the falcon’s wind.

The power of the photons from the gigantic lights of success seems to have diverted Hawkwind's spaceship towards an abyss, a black hole. Cohesion is what is needed on a personal level, so that egos are not launched like rockets toward higher galaxies. But to resurrect the cosmic phoenix of the group is an idea of David Brock: all under the same roof, hooray! Brock, Lemmy, Nik Turner, Del Dettmar, Simon King, Simon House, Stacia, writer Michael Moorcock... The group lifestyle becomes quite lysergic, more than usual. Dave Brock sleeps in the kitchen because there’s no room, Lemmy goes into a state of apparent death after a three-day amphetamine vigil. Del Dettmar says enough: the space trip becomes too confusing, also because he is the one who constantly repairs the locks and doors that everyone breaks (because the house keys are constantly lost), poor devil. He takes off: thus, after the previous departure of Dik Mik, the second astronaut of synthesizers and space electronics also leaves.

David Brock at this point tries everything to compact. He surprisingly hires a second drummer, Alan Powell, and the confusion seems never-ending. It will be Brock who holds the synths, from now on, The sidereal space of Hawkwind’s sound therefore becomes a little more terrestrial: no longer perpetually engulfed from a sonic point of view by the eternal comet trail, but still very space-rock. Under this star, "Warrior On The Edge Of Time" is born.

Are the galactic splendors of previous space odysseys concluded then? Not quite. The spaceship has lost altitude but in the studio withstands the asteroids' impact of external events, giving us a good job. Certainly not perfect: the album's very name seems highly prophetic, as does the mediocre song Standing On The Edge. And then there's this presence of Moorcock, desperately trying to order David Brock's metamorphic concept idea, vaguely outlined on "The Eternal Champion", a work by Moorcock himself. An idea that changes every dawn, according to the writer/collaborator, which he himself declares with his narrative intrusions in The Wizard Blew His Horn and Warrior, (Yawn!) the "sleep" segment of the album. But then a star appears. Not the usual enjoyable rides of Magnu and Assault and Battery. No, much more: shining bright like a supernova The Demented Man, with its lunar atmospheres, forming this absurdly superlative soundscape. Also concise and excellent tracks Kings Of Speed, The Golden Void Part 2. And then Opa-Loka, which irritates Lemmy so much that he doesn't even play on it. "This is what happens when you let drummers create," he bursts out, with his usual finesse.

Lemmy is not satisfied at all: in open conflict with the band, he is discharged taking advantage of his arrest on tour, due to the authorities' mistaking his (legit) amphetamines for cocaine. The band leaves him to his fate, and in revenge, he mischievously takes half of the group's equipment. He leaves slamming the door and shouting: "What a shitty album!" He leaves only one song, Motorhead, considered by Brock and company nothing more than a bonus track to put on the remastered version of the CD, but which, with the umlaut in the right place, will be all of Lemmy's life to follow.

Even the group's statuesque Amazon, Stacia, seems to have had enough: at the end of the tour supporting "Warrior On The Edge Of Time", she says goodbye to everyone and retires to private life.

David Brock, however, continues his course and firmly holds the reins of the group, as he has always done. Beyond the critics' judgments, which already wrinkle their noses sensing the stench of colliding with the satellite of failure, the leader of Hawkwind declares himself satisfied and adds that during that period, Hawkwind was at its peak. Well, maybe not peak, but in any case, they will later navigate much fiercer galaxies.