It is Boxing Day 2025. Yesterday for Christmas I received a gift from a friend I wasn’t expecting – that being the End of All Songs Part 2 by Spirits Burning and Michael Moorcock.
Spirits Burning being the spacey/prog rock collective fronted up by Don Falcone and the conclusion of the collectives’ series of albums based around Moorcock’s classic Dancers at the End of Time trilogy books.
I have the previous albums in the series however had missed this part two concluding part and was unaware of it until my enterprising and thoughtful friend gave it to me yesterday.
Having read Dancers at the End of Time and many other Michael Moorcock books years ago in my youth and being a long time fan of Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult from the same time there’s the added connection of Moorcock working with both bands over the years – for example Warrior at the Edge of Time, Chronicle of the Black Sword, Black Blade etc.
However, there’s no need to be familiar with Moorcock’s book nor Hawkwind or BOC to enjoy what Don and Spirits Burning have done.
That said you can expect a musical approach which is somewhere between the two as on the previous albums in this series.
That’s probably unsurprising with the continuing involvement of Joe and Albert Bouchard and all sorts of people with Hawkwind connections such as Mr. Dibs, Niall Hone and Paul Rudolph.
Some other notable contributors (well, to me at least) are Ross the Boss and Fabienne Shine (Shakin Street) and David Jackson (VDGG).
As with the previous albums in the series, the lyrics follow the Dancers’ story with the music veering between some chugging rockers with a trippy elements, Hawkwind style space rock and Gong style trippy progressiveness.
When Will We Hear being a good example:
There’s a lot going on over the near eighty minute running time and this album is fine way for Don, Michael and the rest of the Spirits Burning collective to conclude the series and do justice to the whole concept.
The album is available from the Spirits Burning BandCamp page:
https://spiritsburningmichaelmoorcock.bandcamp.com/album/the-end-of-all-songs-part-2
However, depending on where you are in the world, postage costs may be prohibitive if you are outside the US and prefer a physical copy over the digital version.
As I’m in the UK, my friend who gave me the CD got it from Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4nRwdZ7
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