If you’ve never owned this live CD from Hawkwind (or even if you have, now is the time to get it). This newly remastered edition sounds better than the original release to my ears. If that wasn’t enough, though, they have really upped the stakes. The new booklet is expanded, too and very nice. There are two new songs on the Palace Springs disc that weren’t on the original release, too. It would be well worth the upgrade if those were the only changes here. They aren’t, though. They’ve included a second disc, previously released as California Brainstorm. It also sounds great here and has an extra song added to it. That makes this a “must have” for Hawkwind fans as far as I’m concerned.

I should mention that I’ve previously reviewed the original releases of both of these albums. For the sake of consistency the track reviews here for the previously released songs will be included here. I’ll also tell you what I said about those original albums as a whole. Here’s what I said about Palace Springs: “Coming from a band with seemingly a million albums under their belt, this is really one of their best live discs. It captures a great, if quite short, period of the band and does so with a style and texture that really is incredible.”

And here’s the original overall review of California Brainstorm: “Due to the packaging and recording quality, I always thought this was a bootleg. I’ve now found out that it’s not. I guess I should say that, when I talk about the recording quality, it’s not that it’s bad, but rather that it’s a little flat. So, all that said, when you look at the music that’s here and the fact that this includes Bridget Wishart and Harvey Bainbridge in the lineup – a grouping that didn’t do that much live work as Hawkwind, this is well worth having. It’s got some incredibly cool medleys of Hawk music that seamlessly move from one thing to another and it’s perhaps one of the most blatantly prog rock oriented versions of the band.”

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2015  Volume 2 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Staccato in its textures, this Hawk cut features some stellar vocal work from Bridget Wishhart and a great violin texture that seriously adds to the piece. It includes a great weird interlude.

Coming straight out of the previous cut, keyboards bring it in and the number begins to build from there. It includes a nice sedate segment.

Coming in gradually, this builds out into quite a powerful space rock jam. This instrumental ebbs and flows as it drifts through various shifts and changes. It has a pretty constant melodic element, but increases and decreases in intensity.