Quark, Strangeness And Charm

Coming into 1977, Alan Powell, Paul Rudolph and Nik Turner were given the boot from Hawkwind following a failed coup orchestrated by Turner. Retaining Simon House and Simon King, Dave Brock and Robert Calvert recruited Adrian Shaw on bass to complete the new lineup. Released in 1977, Quark Strangeness and Charm proves the Brock/Calvert songwriting team had hit their stride; and musically, Hawkwind is at its most progressive. House's keyboards add punch to the recordings, but it's Calvert's presence that's most immediate; it's little wonder that he would become such an influential artist. "Spirit of the Age" motors over a krautrock beat. The riff in "Damnation Alley" indicates typical rock ‘n' roll, but the song's middle section offers a complex instrumental workout that glides effortlessly into the somber "Fable of a Failed Race." The honky-tonk of the title track is then contrasted with the menacing Middle Eastern-tinged riff of "Hassan I Sahba" (sic). House again steals the show with the percolating electronic sequence of "The Forge of Vulcan" that leads into the autobiographical "Days of the Underground." Lastly, King provides another fiery instrumental to close: "The Iron Dream," the title taken from the Norman Spinrad book of the same name. The album continued the band's chart success, as it rose to No. 30 in the UK. But after returning from a US tour in early 1978, the whole Hawkwind ship crash-landed and once again, Brock and Calvert were forced to find a new lineup.