Hawkwind - In Search of Space (1971)

What a weird piece of music: Already the first track You Shouldn't Do That, that clocks in at about fifteen minutes, greets you with repetitive, chanting vocals, proto-stoner rhythm guitar and driving drums, like a spaceship racing on hyper-speed through the universe - and on top of all that is a saxophone! Welcome to Hawkwind! Welcome to In Search of Space!

And really, this is an astonishingly whimsical record. Not the most accessible, as you might have guessed by now, even with their hit-single Silver Machine included as bonus track. But all in all, certainly a captivating, even hypnotic melange of the LSD- and space-age aesthetics of their time.

If you like trippy music far away from the usual conventions, In Search of Space is definitely for you. Its maybe not quite on the level some of their later records, like Hall of the Mountain Grill, but still a strong piece of music with a lot of character and atmosphere.

Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls (2015)

While many great bands of the 80s, if they are still around, are well past their creative zenith, live off their reputation from their "glorious old times" and haven't really released anything relevant in years, some bands just keep getting better and better.

I am glad to say that Iron Maiden falls into the latter category. Especially after seeing them live in the mid 2000s, where they delivered a smooth and polished, but essentially unexciting best-of-show. You know, the sort of show you do before you retire.

In this context, The Book of Souls was quite a surprise. Not only that the band is still able to write exciting new material, they also made serious moves into progressive-metal territory. I think this mix is the magic ingredient of this album really: songs that work as well on an emotional level as on a technical, songwriting one as well.

Despite the majority of the songs being well over six minutes long (and three of them over ten), they are all varied, engaging, keeping the listener interested - and deliver quite some punch.

The most outstanding song of the album is without a doubt Empire of the Clouds. An 18-minute long epic on the tragic maiden voyage of the Airship R101, that perfectly builds up from a dreamy piano-melody into the thunderstorm that eventually crashed it down - all carried by Bruce Dickinson's brilliant vocals and lyrics.

And the best of all of this? They achieve all this without abandoning the character of the band. This is still Iron Maiden; the band that wrote The Number of the Beast, Fear of the Dark, The Trooper - you name it. The new songs fit stylistically perfectly to their old material. They are simply enhanced, have grown and matured into - I won't say perfection, but they are pretty damn close.

Listen closely, guys from Metallica: That's how it's done.

The Psychedelic Avengers - ...and the Decterian Blood Empire (2006)

This is probably the best band you have never heard of. The Psychedelic Avengers were founded in 2004 as a collaborative project of a number of artists and bands, the best known ones probably being Colour Haze and Vibravoid. I think their goal is best described with their own words on the back of their first album: 'This is the first psych-o-phonic, in-head science fiction b-movie for inner-eye-listening pleasures, which is being transvisualized via the soundtrack to your very own imaginary space, psych, teen, mutant, love, trash, porn, noize sci-fi movie'. And yes, its really all that!

The songs usually feature lengthy, pulp-inspired titles like 'The discovery of the lost transdimensional time-space vortex on the iceplanet of Vistar 7' (and that's not even one of their weirdest) and are colourful mixtures of stoner, psychedelic and electro, combined with radio-play like sequences to drive the story ahead. The result is more than compelling.

Be it the tranqulity of space, trippy warp-jumps, radio broadcasts from deep space, or tense battle-scenes - the Psychedelic Avengers are utterly immersing and entertaining. So many different moods, so many different musical worlds to discover.

From the two albums they released, their second ...and the Decterian Blood Empire is the more refined and coherent one. The tracks are more focused, with the overarching storyline of the peaceful civilisations of the Galaxy having to defend themselves against the... you guess. it. The album doesn't gives up any of its inventiveness and diversity though. It just flows and takes you on a wild ride through the ups and downs. An amazing "Space Opera" in the sense of the word.

A pity the Psychedelic Avengers disappeared into obscurity (or into the depths of space) after this album. They really created a masterpiece I love listening to again and again.

As if to prove how obscure this album is, there is only one song from it on Youtube:

(The) Octopus - Supernatural Alliance (2018)

A lot of modern metal, or rock music in general, is pretty formulaic and to be blunt: pretty dull. Its really astonishing that so much talent gets wasted on so uninspired and unexciting material.
Well, The Octopus (or just Octopus, pick your favourite) are different from that. Sure, you could argue that female-fronted retro-psychedelic-metal is not the most inventive of all stylistic choices, but who cares: The Octopus does it so damn well!

As far as I could gather (they are not really well known, you see), they have been around for a while, with their earliest published videos dating back some eight years ago. That's probably part of the reason why their debut album, which just came out this year, sounds so - accomplished.

Catchy riffs, in combination with a superbly groovy rhythm section and on top of it all a very charismatic voice: great ingredients that blend seamlessly together into engaging and diverse songs you just want to listen again and again. Their songwriting and dynamic reminds me quite a lot of Purson or Blood Ceremony, with the heaviness and rock'n'roll drive of Led Zeppelin. Not a bad combination for sure!

Motörhead (1977)

When I was listening to a Sex Pistols song on the radio the other day, I was utterly unimpressed and wondered for a moment, if there wasn't anything better that came out around that time. In the same moment I realized, it did: Motörhead's debut album!

I must confess that I came relatively late to Motörhead and I completely blame my own ignorance for that. I always thought it was something like a mix of AC/DC meets punk rock - neither of which can excite me. One of the first encounters I had with the band was on the Soundtrack to Hellraiser III (or was it IV?), which didn't really impress me either. Too polished and too off the shelf.

Luckily I gave them another chance, namely with some of their earlier stuff and holy shit, I was so wrong about them! They quickly turned into one of my favourite bands. So much about prejudices, huh?

As you might figure, I like their earlier material most, with No Sleep till Hammersmith being their peak. The sheer raw energy is just astonishing and really outstanding. Their first album, while overall not quite up there yet, shows the band already had together the right ingredients from the outset: lean and fast paced urban rock'n'roll, speed-freak paranoia - and a good dose of dirt, sex and violence. Especially the amazing song quartet Lost Johnny, Iron Horse/Born To Lose, White Line Fever and Keep us on the Road blend these things together perfectly (and they are even in sequence) - for me the absolute highlight of the album.

Yes, there are a couple of fillers, namely on its 2nd half, but it still transports enough energy to keep you entertained. And once it is finished - after a bit more than half an hour runtime - you definitely will crave for more!

Deep Purple - Fireball (1971)

Fireball doesn't have it easy. As follow-up album to In Rock, Deep Purple's immensely successful, all-out-assault on the audience's hearing, it probably met the wrong expectations. Despite its fast namesake opener (and probably one of the very first times in rock history to feature double-bass drumming), it is a much more nuanced and varied affair.

Bluesy rock 'n' roll elements can be found here just as well as progressive spacerock-tunes. Hell, with Anyone's Daughter, even a country-song made it on the record - and it does good there!

If someone expected In Rock II however, that can only end in disappointment. In Fireball you can hear a band that doesn't needs to prove anything, but instead can experiment a little and extending their scope. The driving urge of its predecessor is gone and replaced by confidence and playfulness, without losing any of its heavyness - resulting in a brilliant, if slightly atypical album.

Its a pity that Deep Purple didn't pursue the direction they took with Fireball further. The next album, Machine Head, would become more restraint, and straightforward. Possibly reflecting the growing tensions within the band, which eventually led to their split in 1973 and a long painful road to disbandment a couple years later.

In this context, Fireball gives us a glimpse into the band Deep Purple could have been, if this line-up just had a couple more creative years. Who knows what amazing songs they would have made?

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)

This album could have been so great. Houses of the Holy, Trampled Underfoot and the monumental Kashmir - three songs that alone would have guaranteed Physical Graffiti a masterpiece-status, if that would have been all there was.
Sadly they decided to make a double-LP, which meant that the other, roughly three quarters of the runtime had to be filled as well... somehow.

The result is a at times brilliant and exciting (as aforementioned songs document), at times terribly meandering and aimless record. Great material, like In My Time Of Dying get dragged out and swamped seemingly endlessly without any need. And its not doing the songs a favour really. A lot of the material on Physical Graffiti could have worked in half its run-time and maybe preserved more of its emotional impact in the process.
And that's the tragedy of this album: It shows that Led Zeppelin indeed could have lived up to their own standards with wonderfully crafted songs and their feel for melody and their distinctive inventiveness - just by far not often enough. The album as a whole is just way too rambling and meandering. One could think that half the time they just kept the tape recorder running and jammed along. A pity, since it makes Physical Graffiti feel uninspired and yes, tired.

At least this makes the few good songs in it really stand out: