Review Summary: Short but sweet, Take me to your Future shows us that Hawkwind are evolving.
Hawkwind – A trip through space, Part XV – A little bit of Hawkwind
Take me to your Future has the honour of being the last album Hawkwind released in the 2000s. After releasing this record, Hawkwind took something of an extended break and focused on touring. Released in 2006, Take me to your Future is a CD/DVD release: the first disk is composed of just 31 minutes of music, the second disk shows us several of Hawkwind’s live shows.
On this album, Hawkwind are:
Robert Calvert - vocals
Dave Brock - guitar, keyboards, vocals
Alan Davey - bass guitar, vocals
Richard Chadwick - drums
Simon House - violin track 3
Arthur Brown - vocals track 3
Lemmy - vocals track 5
Over half of the album's lyrics comes from the deceased Robert Calvert. 'Uncle Sam's on Mars' comes from PXR5, 'Small Boy' and 'Ode to a Timeflower' both come from the Brock/Calvert Project. This means that on the entire album, there are only nine minutes of new material, which comprises the space rocker 'The Reality of Poverty'.
Despite being a little bit short on new content, Hawkwind manage to put on an enjoyable show with their new take on their older material. However, do not assume that the new music is that much different from the previous versions. It does hit you with a smack of nostalgia as you hear some of Hawkwind’s classic works.
The two stand out tracks on this album are ‘The Reality of Poverty’ and ‘Silver Machine.’ Silver Machine happens to be Hawkwind’s greatest hit, and it also appears in several different forms across Hawkwind’s history. Such as on ‘The Chronicles of the Black Sword’ and ‘Space Ritual’. This Silver Machine is indeed different to its previous iterations and it also has a special guest.
Lemmy returns for ‘Silver Machine’ providing new vocals for the song. His voice still sounds as good as it did thirty years previously. Silver Machine has a new lease of life as Dave Brock takes over the wind section that was originally provided by Nik Turner all those years before. This shows particularly well on the extended middle section as the futuristic noises overcome the rock side of Hawkwind in a way that hasn’t been seen in many years.
‘The Reality of Poverty’ is sung by Arthur Brown and contains some excellent violin work from veteran Hawkwind rocker Simon House. It feels very much like a song from the 70s, with lyrics about how the world is going to collapse due to massive population growth. Arthur Brown does an excellent job and his vocal work is superb on this album. The song manages to feel trapped between the two decades, it feels like the 70s but it sounds much more modern in style and substance, being cleaner and more electronic.
Take me to your Future does have one glaring flaw, its length. No matter how good all the material on the album is, it is nearly impossible to forget that the album is both really short and that there is only one new song on it. In fact the songs ‘Small Boy’ and ‘Ode to a Timeflower’ are identical copies from The Brock/Calvert Experience. And whilst 'Uncle Sam's on Mars' and 'Silver Machine' are both very good, underneath the modern technology they are still the same tracks.
But that should be put aside for the time being, Hawkwind show that in some ways their sound has evolved, but yet in others it has not. Take me to your Future is not a popular album by any sense of the word, and it is often forgotten by people who look to see what Hawkwind provides. But let it be known that it does show some interesting music from Hawkwind, and the live part of the album is even better than the audio part.
