Spacehead - "Explode Into Space" Review

Artist/ Band: Spacehead
Title: Explode Into Space
Label: Dead Earnest (UK)
Year of Release: 2002
Artist/ Band Link (click for details/ ordering)

The Review:

Spacehead is the name under which Mr. Dibs (ex-bass player for Krel) records his own take on the Dave Brock sound. This is his second go at a Spacehead album, being further unreleased and outtake recordings from 1998-2000. At its most interesting Mr. Dibs's ideas suggest he might be a viable candidate for membership in latter-day Hawkwind. At it's least interesting, which is unfortunately usually when it's rocking, Spacehead sounds like an uninspired Brock-led posse slogging its way through the solar system. I suppose if you're really hard up for a Hawkwind fix, this might do the job, but after one or two spins, the sheen is gone. What does work is the very spacey and trance material, suggesting a future in a hybridized dance-trance-crunch rock for the 22nd century.

I wanted to like "Explode Into Space, but at the end of the day I wouldn't have missed much by not hearing it at all. I could have done with more smart work like "Repair Your ID" and "Osiris"...and much less speed-driven goofy space-punk pogo like the opener "Nucleii" and dull thudder "Warriors Of Time" (each of which prompted a pair of veteran spacerockers I know to threaten me if I didn't get that third-rate rubbish off the stereo PDQ). I'll give it a pass and suggest that you do too. Crank up some old Krel instead, or wait until some genuine new Spacehead crash-lands on your planet.

Who would like this?
Hawkwind fans who have to have it man, right now; those with a taste for space-dance-rock.

Who would not like it?
Those that don't need to hear the umpteeth massaging of ideas Brock did to death a long time ago.

Reviewed by Steven Davies-Morris on December 24th, 2006

Tracks:

1. Nucleii [3:41]

2. Brockstomp [4:26]

3. The Monolith Continuum [13:00]

4. Aliens [2:21]

5. Born To Jaaam [1:51]

6. Warriors Of Time [5:07]

7. Repair Your ID [4:18]

8. Osiris (The Awakening) [11:43]

9. Space Race [6:06]

10. Sacred Plants [4:23]