“Lemmy couldn’t compute the concept of ‘subtle.’ It adds to a multifaceted, if superficially flawed, gem”: Hawkwind’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill returns in 9-disc edition

It might have been Lemmy’s penultimate record with the band – he was let go within a year of its September 1974 release – but he often attested that Hall Of The Mountain Grill marks Hawkwind’s zenith.

The astral-travelling free-festival favourites’ fourth album, co-produced with Doug Bennett and Roy Thomas Baker, captures yet another revamped line-up of a band perpetually in flux, who’d recently survived Silver Machine’s unexpected chart success to return to their familiar role as darlings of the UK’s underground freak scene.

Audio generator operator Dik Mik had gone and charismatic co-vocalist Robert Calvert was on hiatus (he’d be back for 1976’s Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music). With keyboardist Del Dettmar intending to follow, ex-High Tide and future Bowie whizz Simon House was recruited to add a fresh aspect to the Hawks’ signature psychedelia with his violin and keys. Which he does, most markedly on dynamic instrumental Wind Of Change (destined to feature prominently in subsequent live shows).

Hall Of The Mountain Grill – a post-Edvard Grieg pun on the Ladbroke Grove cafe once central to the diet and social scene of the W10 freakerati – doesn’t seem to know quite what it is. Opening epic Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke), arguably the most accomplished studio setting of the Hawkwind M.O. yet recorded, bodes well.

Yet both of the album’s other classics, You’d Better Believe It and Paradox, are overdubbed and post-produced live recordings. Nik Turner’s above-par D-Rider – awash in waves of phase – finds itself sandwiched between Web Weaver’s mesmerising repetitions and the first of three instrumentals, which might have previously benefitted from dramatic splashes of poetic Calvert or Michael Moorcock-penned, spoken-word, sci-fi colour.

Meanwhile, Lemmy and Mick Farren’s composition Lost Johnny is something else again. Pluckily, if routinely busked in this incarnation, it aches for its Motörhead setting to reach its full potential.

Crisped and oomphed by a fresh remaster, bolstered by eye-opening disc one extras, including a Rockfield version of You’d Better Believe It and an alternative Wind Of Change that perfectly demonstrates that, as a bassist, Lemmy couldn’t completely compute the concept of ‘subtle’, the album at the core of this box set is a multifaceted, if superficially flawed gem.

And its bolt-ons? An utter treat for the Hawkwind faithful: revelatory new Stephen W Tayler mixes of three full ’74 shows spread across six CDs, a deluxe booklet and a brace of Blu-rays, offering immersive 5.1 mixes of the central album and a full Cleveland live set. Stellar stuff.

Hall Of The Mountain Grill is on sale now in multiple formats via Atomhenge.