Spirits Burning is a long standing and quite prolific musical collective ensemble fronted by Don Falcone.
Over the years, Don has co-opted hundreds of well known musicians in the prog/space rock community to join him on a multitude of projects.
I found the collective a few years ago when learning about their work based on The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy comprising of An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs for which Don had past and present members of Blue Oyster Cult and Hawkwind amongst others performing.
Don contacted me recently to ask if I’d like to review Spirits Burning’s release – which is live album of the collective’s performance at the Kozfest down in Devon in 2017.
This is a very rare live performance as Spirits Burning is usually a studio based affair given the nature of the project and numbers involved.
Don kindly arranged for a review CD to be sent to me (thanks Don) and it’s top stuff.
The line-up includes a strong Hawkwind connection – for example with Richard Chadwick drumming at Bridget Wishart on vocals. And Don himself on all sorts of keys, synths and some vocals.
Over the hour long running time they storm through a strong set curated from the extensive Spirits Burning back catalogue full of powerful, driving spacey rock which Hawkwind themselves surely give an admiring nod towards. There is also a cover of Hawkwind’s Images track.
It’s full of driving, chugging, hypnotic riffs and the big chords, solid, rhythmic drumming, throbbing basslines, swirling and spacey keys and synths and chanting vocals.
The flowing, fluid, scorching guitar breaks are also very tasty. Think the Dave Brock style chugging with the flowing trippiness of Steve Hillage in the Gong days.
The starting point of the three part Spirit Suite puts this whole album on an immediate winner. A glorious twelve minutes or so of sweeping, trippy and powerful proggy spaceyness.
Then it all flows together from there with no let up in how well Spirits Burning deliver.
Check out The Unknown for a four minute or so tour de force:
Couple of others to mention…..The Hawk drive along as another powerful piece as does the instrumental duo of By Design and Snakebite Serum. The guitar breaks are glorious. Steve Bemand does indeed put in a fine stint.
The entire performance is first rate all the way through to the closer of Stand and Deliver.
If you like your Hawkwind, Gong and similar you’ll be right at home here with Spirits Burning.
In addition to the live stuff, there are a couple of studio track as bonus content.
Bag your copy on Amazon UK here:
https://amzn.to/4ihdq6c
Or if you’re outside the UK, you might order from the label directly:
https://www.dekoentertainment.com/inthesquare/spirits-burning
I include the Deko link for non-UK as postage from them to the UK indicates it’s rather expensive….Other options available if you search around.
Perhaps there are digital/streaming versions out there. However as a physical product only person, I don’t know. Though you may?
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