As this album’s first notes ring out, it’s like putting on Hawkwind’s excellent 1980 space rock album Levitation — psychedelic guitars, thumping bass and drum pounding on a par with Ginger Baker, who joined the Hawkwind for that album.

Then the vocals come: Ron Tree is not Dave Brock, but this is a different band and no Hawkwind clone. Hawklords started in 2008 at a gig organised by Nik Turner as a tribute to Robert Calvert, who had died a decade before: Tree, Danny Thompson, Turner, Jerry Richards, Alan Davey, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells, Jim Hawkman, Judge Trev, Martin Griffin, and Adrian Shaw all played.

Tree, Richards, Ashurst, Bainbridge and Pearce remain. We were aware of them and the interweb says they’ve been releasing an album and mounting a tour every year since 2012.

Levitation is a good starting point though this drifts to harder rock and even goes a bit psychedelic punk (Split has a guitar solo straight from The Stranglers), delivering what is a solid set of songs. There are no classics but you can imagine going to a gig and enjoy a groove-laden set.

Standout is perhaps SR-71, featuring Girlschool’s Kim McAuliffe on vocals, but the album is decent throughout.

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