Choose Your Masques is Hawkwind at their most electronic — a synthesizer-soaked record from the tight four-piece Dave Brock led through the early 1980s, and by common consent the best of their RCA years. Released in 1982, it reached the UK Top 30 and carries lyrics by Michael Moorcock, hidden behind a pseudonym.

The short version

Choose Your Masques (1982) is the thirteenth studio album by Hawkwind, recorded at Rockfield Studios and produced by founder Dave Brock. The line-up is the lean quartet of Brock, bassist and keyboard player Harvey Bainbridge, guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton and drummer Martin Griffin, with original saxophonist Nik Turner returning as a guest. Fuller and more keyboard-driven than its predecessors, it includes ‘Arrival in Utopia,’ the Ray Bradbury-inspired ‘Fahrenheit 451’ and a new studio version of ‘Silver Machine.’

The lean years, and a good one

The early 1980s found Hawkwind streamlined and, unusually for them, stable. After Robert Calvert’s departure the band carried on mainly as a four-piece under Dave Brock, releasing three albums in two years and drawing a younger audience through a run of memorable concerts. Choose Your Masques was the last of them, and the last for RCA. The novelist Michael Moorcock, a Hawkwind collaborator since the early days, supplied lyrics for the title track and ‘Arrival in Utopia’ — though for contractual reasons they appeared under his wife’s name. Nik Turner, a founder member absent for years, rejoined for the tour and played saxophone on the record.

The sound

This is the most electronic Hawkwind had yet sounded. Synthesizers dominate, drum machines pulse, and the textures reach for something futuristic rather than psychedelic, yet the band’s essential engine is intact: Dave Brock’s grinding rhythm guitar, Harvey Bainbridge’s propulsive bass, Huw Lloyd-Langton’s soaring lead lines and Martin Griffin’s muscular drumming. The mix is fuller and warmer than on the two previous RCA albums, largely because of the sheer weight of keyboards. Hard space rock sits beside stark electronic experiment, and the album moves easily between them.

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The songs

The title track opens on Moorcock’s words and a churning riff, and ‘Dream Worker’ follows as a classic slab of Hawkwind synth music. ‘Arrival in Utopia’ is heavy rock at its best, and became a live staple for years. ‘Void City’ quotes the spoken opening of the old television series The Outer Limits and sounds startlingly like early techno. Huw Lloyd-Langton’s ‘Solitary Mind Games,’ written with his wife Marion, rides a repeating guitar figure, and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ — a Brock and Calvert song from 1978, drawn from Ray Bradbury’s novel — is a lean, catchy rocker. Only the re-recorded ‘Silver Machine’ disappoints.

Reception and legacy

The album reached number 29 in Britain and stayed on the chart for five weeks, a solid showing that confirmed the commercial revival of the early-1980s band. Many fans regard it as the finest of the RCA trilogy, praising the strength of the writing and the confidence of the playing, while grumbling almost universally about the pointless studio remake of ‘Silver Machine.’ The tour that followed, with Nik Turner back in the fold and Michael Moorcock appearing on stage, is fondly remembered. It closed a chapter: RCA and Hawkwind parted ways, and the line-up soon began to shift once more.

The verdict

Choose Your Masques is not the place to discover Hawkwind — In Search of Space and Space Ritual come first — but it is a strong, surprisingly forward-looking record, and the obvious entry point to their 1980s work. Approach it as electronic space rock rather than a psychedelic freakout and it delivers handsomely. Come for the drive of ‘Arrival in Utopia’ and the catchy menace of ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ stay for the eerie pulse of ‘Void City,’ and hear a great band finding a new decade entirely to their liking.

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