Hawkwind were a phenomenon in the post-hippie atmosphere of early '70s England and Europe, but never quite achieved liftoff in America. Here in the States, they're best known for being the band Lemmy was in before Motörhead. And somewhat tragically, they're still staggering around, dozens if not hundreds of membership changes and lame, watered-down studio and live albums later. But from 1971-75, they were godlike. Noted rock philosopher Joe Carducci wrote of Hawkwind, "These guys are the loosest, most organic band the UK has produced, and by the sound of things it took a truckload of drugs to get them this way....[their] fourth album, a live double titled Space Ritual, is a viable substitute for actually getting wasted yourself."

That pretty much covers it. The band, formed around a core of guitarist/vocalist Dave Brock, saxophonist/vocalist​Nik Turner and keyboardist/electron​ics guy Michael "Dik Mik" Davies, created a garage-rock roar that lent itself to long, one- or two-chord jams at top volume. Their most powerful lineup lasted roughly from 1972 to 1975, and featured the aforementioned trio plus Lemmy on bass and drummer Simon King, as well as poet Robert Calvert, who would declaim verse between songs as the band's electronics hummed and spun behind him, and a 6' nude onstage dancer named Stacia. The band also had an astonishingly assaultive light show; Lemmy has recalled the band locking the doors to venues so no one could leave, dosing the entire audience with LSD and turning on the strobe lights to play.

The four Hawkwind studio albums everyone should hear are 1971's In Search of Space, 1972's Doremi Fasol Latido, 1974's Hall of the Mountain Grill and 1975's Warrior on the Edge of Time. These albums, featuring songs like "Brainstorm," "Lord of Light," "The Watcher," "The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)," the 15-minute epic "You Shouldn't Do That" and more, are simultaneously cranked-up and shamblingly loose; Lemmy's bass (he doesn't play on In Search of Space) is often the lead instrument, with Brock's guitar wandering around lost in waves of distortion and swirling effects, and Turner's sax drifting in and out, and the keyboards always spiraling around in imitation of the spinning galaxies the bandmembers were almost certainly seeing flash before their eyes. It all stays anchored, though, because of the work of Lemmy and drummer King, who keeps a head-down, crashing rock 'n' roll 4/4 at all times.

Hawkwind was not the Grateful Dead of England; they rocked way too hard for that. Indeed, their music and the live show that went with it are more like a precursor to the Butthole Surfers, who became legendary in the mid to late '80s for traumatizing audiences with fire, horrifying films and a general sense that everything was about to go horribly wrong. Space Ritual, a double disc that really does capture Hawkwind at the peak of their powers (you can skip the whole studio discography if you just hear it) is an album that carries you along on waves of unstoppable energy. It's one of the great hard rock records of the 1970s or any decade.

Lemmy was fired from the group in 1975 after being busted for speed at the US/Canada border; the rest of the band were heavy acid takers and his aggressive biker-rock style, while it was in many ways the key to the music, grated on his bandmates. Had that not happened, though, we wouldn't have Motörhead today. Hawkwind kept on going, making albums that at least through the early '80s were worth a brief nod, but over time the string of weak lineups (Brock is the only founding member left) and weaker live albums and outtakes compilations has made it very clear that they had one short, great moment and it ended with Lemmy's departure. But if you want to hear some amazing, brain-wiping rock music, you need to hear Space Ritual.

Here's the only video footage of Hawkwind from those days - a video for "Silver Machine," with Lemmy on vocals.




 

Happy Earth Day. Here are six metal videos that have nothing to do with environmentalism, or much of anything else besides tearing your face off (and maybe promoting a new movie - see if you can spot the subtle hints).

AC/DC, "Highway to Hell":


Brain Drill, "Beyond Bludgeoned":


Godsmack, "Cryin' Like a Bitch":


Toxic Holocaust, "Lord of the Wasteland":


Triptykon, "Necromantical Screams" (live footage, not an official video):


Warbeast, "Scorched Earth Policy":

 

In our Testimonials section, metal musicians talk about the albums they love and that have influenced them. This time out, Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy talks about his favorite Led Zeppelin disc.



Led Zeppelin, Presence (Swan Song, 1976): "I’m like a huge Zeppelin fan, so to me it’s the ultimate in hard rock, and I just go back to that record all the time. I’ve played guitar, obviously, for years, and I still practice to that record to warm up or to have fun to, to this day. It’s just one of those records I’m just crazy about." 

Three excellent CDs and a superb DVD set, all from veteran acts, make up this week's new releases - here's the rundown:

Cathedral, The Guessing Game (Nuclear Blast): This double disc is possibly Cathedral's weirdest to date. The band got its start at the dawn of the '90s when vocalist Lee Dorrian abandoned Napalm Death, choosing to pursue Sabbath-y doom rather than move from grindcore to death metal with his former bandmates. Cathedral's gradually gone down a number of side roads from their original slow-and-low sound, embracing stoner boogie, Hawkwind-style space rock, and even funk grooves while never losing their ultra-heavy essence. They've never been entirely consistent in any respect, with multiple membership changes and stylistic shifts and albums that had three or four great songs alongside a bunch of rote exercises, but The Guessing Game is simultaneously one of their weirdest albums and one of their best. It encompasses jazz-funk, acoustic folk, retro psychedelia and ultra-heavy doom, and it's fantastic. Twenty years into their career, Cathedral have hit their stride once more.

Ratt, Infestation (Loud & Proud/Roadrunner): Speaking of bands hitting their stride after a long time in the wilderness...Ratt's first three albums, 1984's Out of the Cellar and 1985's Invasion of Your Privacy in particular, were terrific, brash examples of melodic metal. Several years before "glam" or "hair metal" became a codified (and ridiculed) trend, Ratt exemplified the hedonistic L.A. rock sound along with Mötley Crüe. And this, their first album in a decade and the first one to feature new second guitarist Carlos Cavazo (formerly of Quiet Riot, and replacing Robbin Crosby, who died in 2002), is a fierce return to form. Ratt never did the power-ballad thing; they were straight-up rockers, and this album features ten snarling, crunching tracks fronted by the still-sneering Stephen Pearcy and given added power by the shredding guitar solos of Cavazo and Warren DeMartini. This is a throwback album with modern production techniques, and listening to it is pure pleasure, whether you remember Ratt's glory days or not.

Sick Of It All, Based on a True Story (Century Media): Sick Of It All have been in the hardcore game for over two decades, but they're still crushing younger competitors. This album strays from the pure crunch they started with on their self-titled debut EP and 1988's classic Blood, Sweat and No Tears - songs like "Dominated," "A Month of Sundays" and "Good Cop" run the stylistic gamut, touching on Rancid-style punk, groove metal, and pure shout-along hardcore. There's even a song ("Waiting for the Day") that's rootsy hard rock in the vein of Social Distortion. This is a great album that proves Sick Of It All are more than just knuckle-dragging hardcore thugs - they're a classic American band with an undeniable passion that's kept them vital for 20-plus years and will likely keep them going for a long time to come.

At the Gates, The Flames of the End (Earache): This triple-disc set deserves to be in your DVD rack alongside Amon Amarth's Wrath of the Norsemen and Cannibal Corpse's Centuries of Torment. It's that good. The first disc is a two-hour-plus documentary, directed by guitarist Anders Björler, covering their 2008 reunion/farewell tour and the entire history of the band leading up to that, from the members' childhood in rural Sweden through their initial formation and the recording of every album. It also features four music videos. The second disc contains their entire concert from the 2008 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The third disc offers still more live footage from various shows across the globe, going back as far as 1991. This is an awesome document, celebrating a band that, it could be argued, singlehandedly created the melodic death metal sound with their album Slaughter of the Soul. A must-own.
 

Faith No More hasn't announced many U.S. tour dates - they played three nights at the Warfield in San Francisco April 12-14, they're going to be doing two shows in Brooklyn in July, and on Saturday, they played the Coachella festival in Indio, CA. Some footage of that show made it online; here are a few clips.

"Last Cup of Sorrow":


"Ashes to Ashes/Just a Man":


"Midlife Crisis":


"Ben" (yes, the Michael Jackson song):


And, of course, "Epic" (incomplete):

 

The Soundgarden reunion (which got me in some trouble when I posted about it a while back) is officially off and running. The group played a "secret" show, billed as Nudedragons, at the Showbox in their hometown of Seattle on Friday night. The two-hour set featured no guest appearances, but did include 17 songs from the band's entire history and discography, and a Doors cover. Here's what they played:

"Spoonman"
"Gun"
"Searching With My Good Eye Closed"
"Rusty Cage"
"Beyond the Wheel"
"Flower"
"Ugly Truth"
"Fell on Black Days"
"Hunted Down"
"Nothing to Say"
"Loud Love"
"Blow Up the Outside World"
"Pretty Noose"
"Outshined"
"Slaves and Bulldozers"
"Get on the Snake"
"Big Dumb Sex"
"Waiting for the Sun"

There's no video, but there is some surprisingly high-quality audio available; here are a few highlights.







The next Soundgarden show (so far as anybody outside the band's camp knows right now) will be at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, the weekend of August 6-8.
 

The lineup for the annual Summer Slaughter Tour has been announced, and it's easily the heaviest, most brutal tour of the year. Here's who's playing:

Decapitated - a Polish technical death metal band on their first U.S. tour since losing their vocalist and drummer in a tourbus accident. The only remaining original member is the guitarist.
The Faceless - a super-technical/prog​ressive death metal band from Encino, CA.
All Shall Perish - a relatively ordinary deathcore band from Oakland, CA.
The Red Chord - Massachusetts-based metalcore outfit, highly regarded by many (but not me).
Veil of Maya - Chicago-based progressive/technica​l metalcore band, not named after the Cynic song.
Cephalic Carnage - Colorado-based stoner tech-grind band that lots of people love. I don't get it, frankly, but they drive the kids insane live.
Decrepit Birth - Santa Cruz, CA-based technical death metal band whose lyrics and album concepts tend toward the mystical/esoteric.
Carnifex - San Diego, CA-based deathcore band whose 2010 album Hell Chose Me is getting generally positive reviews.
Animals as Leaders - the odd band out on this bill for sure, AAL is an instrumental outfit led by Tosin Abasi, who also plays live guitar with Born of Osiris.
Vital Remains - the veterans of the tour, these Rhode Island-based death metallers released their first album in 1992, and their last one in 2007.

Tour dates have not been announced yet.
 

Type O Negative vocalist/bassist Peter Steele (born Petrus T. Ratajczyk on January 4, 1962 in Brooklyn, N.Y.) has died of heart failure at 48. The first report came from Fuse TV host and metal scenester Juliya Chernetsky, who posted "Peter Steele passed today. I loved my friend...our idol...my heart is with his band and family..." on Twitter. She followed that up with "he passed of heart failure today. Just spoke to Kenny" [Hickey, Type O Negative's guitarist].

Revolver magazine editor Brandon Geist also posted about the subject overnight, saying "Hoping [the rumors] are not true, but the source is good."

It was initially reasonable to doubt, though, given that back in 2005, the Type O Negative website's front page featured a gravestone with the words "Peter Steele - 1962 - 2005 .... Free At Last" carved on it. That time, Steele was very much alive and the gravestone was merely a joke referring to the band's split with longtime label Roadrunner Records.

Sadly, it's now been confirmed.

For those who don't know the story, Steele first came to the metal world's attention with his thrash band Carnivore. Crude (lyrically and musically), the band played a sort of D.R.I.-meets-Biohazard back-alley roar, with songs like "Male Supremacy," "Jesus Hitler" and "Race War" that were apparently intended as jokes, though not everyone was laughing. They released two albums - a 1986 self-titled debut and 1987's Retaliation - before breaking up. (A totally different lineup of the group, with Steele being the only common factor, toured in 2006.)

After Carnivore's breakup, Steele took a couple of years to reappear - when he did, it was with a much heavier, slower, and more musically sophisticated band. Type O Negative made its dark sense of humor more obvious, and over the course of seven albums -- "Slow, Deep and Hard," "Origin of the Feces," "Bloody Kisses," "October Rust," "World Coming Down," "Life is Killing Me" and "Dead Again" -- they explored numerous styles, from the Gothic doom that was their primary stock-in-trade to the '60s-style psychedelia of their semi-hit single "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend" and trudging covers of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" and Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze."

Steele's basso vocal style was unique in metal and hard rock, frequently sounding more like the groan of a burial vault door creaking open than a human voice, though he always enunciated his lyrics, never opting for an "extreme" Cookie Monster style. In his personal life, he battled drug addiction and depression, and spent time in prison and rehab. His darkest period came around the time of World Coming Down, when personal tragedies led him to write songs like "Everyone I Know Is Dead."

Artistically and commercially, Type O Negative was very successful, particularly in the early to mid '90s, and retains a strong cult following today. I have no doubt their reputation will endure for a long time to come.

(ADDENDUM: One of the members of Destrophy, who opened for Type O Negative on what has turned out to be their final tour, has posted a really nice tribute to Steele; you can read that here.)