Featuring new member Simon House on synths and violin, and following the departure of Robert Calvert and electronic effects man Dik Mik, Hall of the Mountain Grill feels like something of an interim album for Hawkwind. Despite their cosmic pretensions, they were wary of the commercial success they had enjoyed with 1973’s Space Ritual and pondering which direction to go in next.
The album was named after a restaurant in London’s Portabello Road in which the group used to convene, a self-effacing title at odds with the grandeur of the cover, depicting a derelict spaceship in the mists of an alien lagoon; in 1974 we were two years into the post-space age. Tracks like The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke) are quintessential Hawkwind space…