Oh fuck! Those were the words uttered when this disc came hovering through the letterbox like some shards of space debris exported from Hanger 18 or wherever those pesky governments keep space things.

After being horrified by the promo for the last Moonband album I had the pleasure (cough) of reviewing it, with great difficulty. I eased the disc out of the cover and laid it to rest in the holder of my 21st century audio playing device as the speaker volume was raised to see if extreme volumes could raise my enjoyment of space rock exponents Moonband.

Anyway, before we get stuck into the song titles and concept I'll admit that the laid back folky pangs of opener 'Photosynthesis' took me by surprise and whilst coming across all Neil Young trippin out I did manage to raise an eyebrow as the harmonica parped and the bass rolled - good God almighty, have the Moonband managed to infiltrate my cranium and make an album I would admit to listening to? Track two wasn't all bad either; the glockenspiel on 'The Temptations Of Superman' didn't sound promising but in fairness it was alright. From the cello chug to the neat finger picked acoustic it was alright. The lyrics were already beginning to sort of have an effect on my head and after thumbing through the booklet it was with a sigh and a little fnarfff I decided not to investigate further (the crazy mofos).

In fairness the album is well recorded and some of the songwriting is pretty decent for what it is (that's folk and acoustic Americana to you readers). It's not rock but then they don't pretend to be, when they do the folk thing it's pretty straight down the line slow tempo finger pickin' and when they go for the Gypsy folk, like on 'Rock Me On', it's sort of a Tom Waits bag and easily the best thing on offer here. Talking of Tom Waits, track eight, 'Number Seven' (yeah I know confusing it might be), starts off almost using the spirit of Tom and is in fact another decent offering.
 

To sum it up, this wasn't a bad album; by that I mean I did play it all the way through and wasn't repulsed at the experience - perhaps it was a little too relaxed and laid back for my liking, and the concept does nothing for me, but there are moments of quality even if some of the lyrics are a bit, um, tosh! I'd like to think that The Moonband are having the best of times and every day is as good as the last was and the whole floating round space aren't we wacky thing is a source of much merriment to Eugen and his band, and recording in some dark and frightening woods in the West of the Czech Republic is one hell of a craic. Good luck Moonband but I think it's time to get back onto Terra Firma, you crazy musos.

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