1073. Motörhead / We Are Motörhead. 2000. 4.5/5

As so many bands of the heavy metal genre and their offshoots spent most of the 1990’s decade either trying to find a way to survive, or changing their sound to adapt to the times, or did indeed disappear due to the changes that occurred around them, some bands were able to continue on their merry way, providing the same service that they had. Perhaps they weren’t selling as many albums as they were in the 1980’s, or even selling as many tickets to their shows, but there were a few bands out there that kept pumping out albums with the same regularity and the same style of music as they always had. One of those bands was Motorhead. In fact, during this time the band was being elevated into bigger venues in places such as Japan and South American countries like Argentina. Back home in the UK also, promotors found a resurgence in the popularity of the straightforward hard and heavy music that Motörhead offered, and their live shows continued to be well attended. By this point of their career, the band had moved back to the three-piece outfit that seemed to suit the band best, with Lemmy on bass and vocals as always, and guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee making up the trio. So well was the band performing that it was thought that they should put out another live album, but first came their studio album “Snake Bite Love” in March 1998. Going out on tour to support that album they recorded their shows in Hamburg which became the live album “Everything Louder Than Everyone Else”, which captured the trio for posterity in the live setting.
When it came to recording their follow up studio album, the band decided against standing still in their current climate. With the band in demand, they didn’t want to knock back any live work, and so it was a haphazard recording process, firstly taking place between June and August of 1999 in Germany, and then January through March in 2000 in California. The production of the album was also shared through several people. It wasn’t the most natural and normal way to go about writing and recording an album, but then Motorhead had never been a band that did things in a normal way. Eventually it all came together for the band's first album of the new decade and century, and perhaps as a statement to the world the title loudly and proudly proclaimed “We Are Motorhead”.

One of the things Motorhead has always done well is an opening track that brings the energy to the album from the outset, and they succeed with that once again here with “See Me Burning” which starts the album off on the right foot and at the right pace, with Mikkey Dee’s wonderful drum solo opening into super-fast riffing from Phil Campbell and Lemmy’s jumpstarted vocals. Mikkey’s drumming is sensational here, showcasing how important he became for the band as the song rushes along to its conclusion. A great start. This is followed by two terrific typically styled Motorhead tracks. “Slow Dance” pulls itself back into a contemporary Motörhead tempo, setting up a head-bobbing lick and hard rocking riff from Phil Campbell’s guitar. Phil’s lovely heavy riff is the mainstay of the song. Lyrically perhaps it doesn’t hit the heights of the music but it is still a fun song to move along to. “Stay Out of Jail” settles nicely into the next level up in tempo and a great rhythm from Lemmy and Mikkey, with Dee’s drumming in particular creating a perfect hard crashing tempo that gives Phil the base to lay down two great solos that continues on with the harder edge to the album that recent efforts. Three terrific songs, all in slightly differing Motorhead styles, give this album a great start.
There has to be a very good reason for wanting to record a cover of a Sex Pistols song, especially one that is as iconic as “God Save the Queen”. Trying to replicate the attitude of that song is something that is difficult no matter who you are. And if you are Motorhead, why do it? Was it just to fill up the album or was it a tribute to the days when the band first formed and started gigging around? Either way, as covers go, it’s a good one, and Lemmy’s cultured tones and Mikkey’s hard drumming create a great version. Following this the album jumps straight back into high gear with the fast paced and loud “Out to Lunch” which has just about everything that make up the best parts of Motörhead. High tempo, high velocity, great solo licks and the drums driving the song along with plenty of bangs and crashes. This has Lemmy’s favoured old-time rock and roll feel to it as well that even by this stage of the band’s career Lemmy is injecting into songs and making it work perfectly.
Side Two opens with a rumbling roller coaster. While “Wake the Dead” has an unlikely double kick and tom drum rolling drum lineage which dominates the track, lower bottom end vocals range from Lemmy that climb back up to the top as the song progresses give this song its appeal, creating an unusual atmosphere for the band’s usual intense rock sound. Then we break out through the end of the song as Lemmy fast chants his lyrics and with Campbell’s solo spot which sends the track out in style.
If there is a problem song on this album for me (and let’s face it, there is), it is “One More Fucking Time”, and it isn’t because of the title of the track. Everything dials back from the start of the song to that uncomfortable clear slow guitar where Lemmy’s vocals go into an awkward phase where they are trying to reach that ballad tone but can never quite reach it comfortably. And yes it is a ballad, and I do have an aversion to the vast majority of ballad track. And yeah I know, ‘just get over it and accept it for what it is’, and I do. But I still often wonder why the band would play songs like this. Because they want to? Because they think they need to? Because it’s a great idea for their career? I don’t know, but this is a ‘skip’ song if ever I’ve heard one, and that makes it superfluous to an album if you are going to be thinking this from the start. It also is far too long, clocking in at almost seven minutes. It’s a lot to expect the listener to struggle through this. On the other side of the coin, Phil’s guitaring is great and his solo that takes out the song is very much a typical ballad track solo. It’s not such a bad song once you get through it but there are only so many times I want to listen to it. It is so different from the belligerence that the rest of the album exudes that it does halt every track of momentum the album has had to this point.
As a pay-off, the last three songs on the album bring us back to where we ought to be, as the short sharp shock that Motörhead does so well. The way that “Stagefreight / Crash & Burn” immediately does what the title suggests, by crashing back into the best Motorhead tradition of fast paced hard rock is terrific, harnessing the best of Lemmy’s vocals and lyrics as Mikkey crashes along on the drums and Phil hammers along on guitar. Great stuff. “(Wearing Your) Heart on Your Sleeve” rolls along in a different style but still each of the three members deliver the goods. Mikkey’s double kick gives the track some extra oomph while the bass and guitar riff become almost guttural along with Lemmy’s vocals along the way. Then we come to the closing title track of “We Are Motörhead”, the absolute epitome of a Motorhead song, the perfect embellishment of Lemmy’s signature bass tone and riff, backed by the drums and guitar riff that belt along in a song reminiscent of their glory days. And as a song written as a tribute to... themselves, it is a beauty. The attitude, the glory that is Motorhead. A closing track that completes what is one of the best Motor head albums you could hope to listen to.

Heading into their fourth decade as a band, there is little doubt that there would be a lot of pundits out there who would be wondering if Motörhead still had relevance in the music world. Despite a stable lineup and the consistent release of albums every couple of years, was the style of music that Motörhead continued to release really what the kids wanted to hear? Motorhead hadn’t changed. They stuck to what they liked and what they knew they were good at. We are Motorhead, and we play rock and roll. The start of the new century had seen such an upheaval in heavy music over a ten year period, it is hard to think now of how rare a breed Motorhead was at that time. They hadn’t changed with the times, they hadn’t acceded to changes the way many other bands had tried to do. They stuck to their metaphorical guns and kept blazing away. And they had survived. No doubt the three amigos (Mark II) didn’t give a rats arse. And no matter what you thought of the albums that they band had put together during the 1990’s, this was something different. This was something altogether more impressive.
From my own point of view, “We Are Motörhead” is an album to set the record straight as to whether they still had it or not.
It was four or five years after this album was released that I first heard it. I caught up on what seems like a dozen Motorhead albums at that time, which was actually only half a dozen, including live releases. Of those albums, this was the last that I listened to, but it immediately made me sit up and take notice. Because as much as I enjoyed those other albums that I listened to at that time, this one was different. It was a step above. Every song came out of the speakers the way Motorhead albums are supposed to. All three band members were at the top of their form. The songs had all of the variables that create the best Motorhead albums.
Yeah OK. There is one song here that troubles me. And although it offers a counter point to the rest of the album, I truly believe that “One More Fucking Time” is the only song here that stops this album being at the very top of the tree. The blasted ballad, once again dragging down album estimations since 1965.It is the only sore point on an otherwise superlative album.
I’ve had this out of its sleeve again this week, the vinyl version that I added to my collection a couple of years ago, and it has been so much fun having it on in the Metal Cavern all over again. And it is a shame that people out there won’t give this band a good run because they don’t enjoy Lemmy’s vocals (which of course, I do love!). Because the musicianship here from Lemmy himself, but especially from Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee is just fantastic. You should not shortchange these guys, they are wonderful musicians, and they rip it up here in grand style.
Motorhead had a few very obvious high points in their career, and this for me is one of them. They climbed their way through the 1990’s and began the 2000’s with an album that is one of the very best releases of that year. They planted the warpig flag and stated their intent to continue to play rock and roll. And so they did, in grand style. And as Lemmy so rightfully puts it in the song that bears their name, “We are the future baby, used to be the past, we are Motorhead and we don’t have no class”