Mighty Hawkwind Classics 1980-85

Though “Hurry on Sundown” and “Sweet Mistress of Pain” turn the clock back to Hawkwind’s late-\'60s and early-\'70s period of blasting astral space-rock jams through hulking, stacked amplifiers, the instrumental, horn-laden “Kings of Speed” and the Lemmy Kilmister–sung “Motorhead” kick out tougher, muscled jams. The nearly eight-minute “Valium Ten” continues to muse on the band members’ vices of choice, with noticeably more Moog freakouts and a gradually ascending horn section. At times, “Night of the Hawks/Stonehenge” sounds like Dave Brock and Nik Turner had fallen under the arena-rock spell of KISS, while the solid-state synthesizers and fantasy-based lyrics of “Dragons & Fables” sounds like the song was aimed at lonely kids rolling multi-sided dice in their parents’ dens.