Hawkwindforum

First heard this album back in about 1999, while trawling through a backstreet market in Scarborough, cardboard boxes on the floor, was a heap of 80's HW vinyl, this was one of them.
Since that day, i have also acquired the DVD too, which has probably done more harm than good!
Anyway, it rapidly grew out of favour as, at the time, i filed it under P for pretentious.
However, i recently dug it back out, and in all honesty, musically, it is a 5 star album, lyrically, make of it what you will.
Everybody knows that i am a massive Nik Turner fan, but, this album contains a excellent version of MOTU.
So, what do you think?
HLL's guitar and vocal work on this is amongst his finest, if not, THE finest...

Well having given up on Hawkwind at COTBS stage (1986 if I remember) and heard none of their new material up until Alien4.
Just listened to Live Chronicles for the first time ever and it's so easy to say that I got a really good feel for that live performance, so I was wrong.

Tis their best album and live set!

If you disagree, you're wrong.

Thank you, and good night.

Tis their best album and live set!

If you disagree, you're wrong.

Thank you, and good night.

Totally agree with atomhenge, that HLL's guitar work is outstanding on that recording.

COTBS The Album suffered from poor recording especially those drums! The Atomhenge remaster does improve it considerably. Could have been so much better.

Live Chronicles - Its ok but I thought the Earth Ritual Preview show at Hammersmith in 1984 was the best I saw the band in that era sound wise. Chronicles was more staged for the theatre bits which I think effected the feel of the music.

Sean

Love them both! Classic '80s Hawkwind.

I love Black Sword! subscribing to the Poe-school of lyrical license; i.e.
as tonal features of the music, rather than messages or stories, meaning
is not a consideration. I suppose the same could be said with regard to
Warrior, although there, I don't particularly find much to like in the voices
of Moorcock and Turner. Sorry. If the same line-up that recorded COTBS
had performed on Warrior, the pair might have made a tighter set of book-
ends, as it were.

It's not all bad. Once you get to Zarozina, Chronicles of the Black Sword picks up a bit but before that, besides the synth interludes, there's a desperate shortage of creativity and imagination. I'm going to repeat stuff I said in my Amazon review but Hawkwind lacked the poetic imagination to pull this off. You have to do it in a vague way but trying to be literal leads to lyrical embarrassment and there's a bucketful to choose.

This extends into Live Chronicles with the shockingly poor narrative bits. Then we get tracks like Moonglum. A fine tune, a classic even, possibly the best of the period but we have to be thankful that the chorus lyrics are fairly hard to understand.

Too many weak and uninspired tracks. Song of the Swords is like Hawkwind by numbers. Elric the Enchanter, Sea King and Needle Gun (surely we should be well past this sort of stuff by now) just terrible. But there is the last part of side 2 of the studio album, the synth bits, Moonglum and Dreaming City to save the day.

Coupled with this is the sound and the dominance of widdly lead guitar. It's just all wrong, or mainly at least. Shade Gate has some beautiful lead guitar. This sound dominates the live album which would be their worst without Moonglum and Dreaming City and a very few other highlights. At least we only have to hear it rather than watching the spectacle on stage just adding to the embarrassment.

The best thing - it was all over. Hawkwind remembered who they were and with the Xenon Codex they get back on course.

COTBS was one of my favourites at the time but fell out of favour during the 90's. I just never fancy listening to it but i still like it. I'm not keen on Song of the Swords and Needlegun now, and Zarozinia is a bit too much 'love song' for my tastes. The instrumental on Horn of Destiny goes on a bit too. The remaster has a better sound but I think the production is very much of the time.

As for Live Chronicles, the melodic rhythmic sound, HLL guitar and Bainbridge electronica work well. The 2 original tracks Moonglum and Dreaming City are fantastic. 1980-87 isn't my favourite time for HW live sound but this album creates quite a good sound though i have to agree abot the indulgiant HLL guitar.

I viewed this as MOR Hawkwind. Very commercial which is ironic because it was their first proper studio album on an independent label! Very safe, inoffensive, the concept was started and just not followed through. Way too Spinal tap for me and while it had its moments its not one I choose to play very often and I get the same feeling every time I listen to it.

Well I'm with Pedal Bin on this one, i loved the live shows, the live cd and dvd, HLL was indeed widdling away and I certainly appreciated it .......... drumming a tad weak is my only gripe (sorry Danny) but otherwise loved the blanga and cutting lead guitar

I really liked this album at the time, it was kind of my era, but these days I rarely play this or the studio album. Huw's Dreaming City and Moonglum really added to it, it always amazed me that they were left off Chronicle of the Black Sword.

I tend to agree with the comment that the drums let it down. Funny really as, if Danny played like he did on the Xenon Codex tour (i.e. like he did on that 1988 Friday Rock Show Broadcast) it would have sounded stunning. By then he sounded so much more assured. On this album though it's all plodding drums and splashing cymbals.

I'm still a little unfamiliar with the expanded version to be honest, I played the GWR version to death at the time. Oddly I still have yet to see the video/dvd of the show...

When COTBS came out I played it to death...well I was only 15 at the time...
I still like the sound of this album a lot - Brocks guitar not buried in the mix for example - and it gets full marks for having all new material (Was going to say the same about Xenon Codex untill I remembered two tracks appeared on Agents Of Chaos a few months earlier) the re-recording of old songs is something about Hawkwind that really gets on my goat and I guess this venture made that thankfully impossible.

The "metal" phase didn't - and still doesn't - appeal to me. I pretty much ignored what they were doing over a 24-month period spanning 1986 to 1988... no gigs, no purchases.

I'd hear the odd bit and just think something like "Errrr... yes... I see...." and then get back under my duvet and listen to '70s stuff again

PS: I bought the missing items (COTBS / live Chronic) some years later. They're still my least-fav HW.)