As any clothes horse will tell you, wait long enough and eventually everything comes back into fashion. Hawkwind arguably the progenitor of space rock, helped launched the genre at the dawn of the '70s, seeing it flower, then wither, over the ensuing decades. Now half-a-dozen of the group's early members have reunited under the moniker Space Ritual, a tag originally coined for Hawkwind's eyebrow raising 1972 tour. It's the perfect name for a group that still represents all that space rock has/had to offer, and one which refuses to be tied to a time and space now long gone. Otherworld is their debut album, and a set as extravagant as the initial Space Ritual shows themselves. The Return opens the set as one might expect in a kaleidoscope of otherworldly sounds and effects, until Otherworld shimmers forth among twittering birds. A pastoral melody breezes in from the faraway fields of Canterbury, until suddenly a gust of guitar and hip-hop beats sweep in and blow the past away. Across this five-minute track, SR interweave the modern and the classic, rap and rock, folk and soul, twining them together with a compulsive beat and a strong melody that passes from axe to sax to keyboards to flute and back again. It's the first of many revelations within this remarkable set. Ritual of the Ravaged Earth is just as inspired, providing the missing links between early electronica, synth-pop, and the New Romantics, a dance filled delight that sounds like it's heading straight for the pop chart. That number's driven by the drum-machine type beats fashionable in the '80s, ASDF is fired by Terry Ollis' tribal beats, which could equally support Adam the Ants, Gary Glitter, or the Last Poets. Every musician brings something to this showcase, with some songs built around specific instruments -- most notably Atomik's 12-string guitar, Droid Love's sax, Arrival in Utopia's keyboards, Notes from a Cold Planet flute and synth, and Bubbles electric guitar.

1		The Return
2		Otherworld
3		Black Corridor
4		Bubbles
5		Communique II
6		Ritual Of The Ravaged Earth
7		ASDF
8		Sonic Savages
9		Droid Love
10		Time Crime
11		Arrival In Utopia
12		Atomik
13		The Riddle
14		Notes From A Cold Planet
15		Walking Backwards