1081. Motörhead / Clean Your Clock [Live]. 2016. 3.5/5

And so here we are, at the end of the road. The final curtain has been drawn and we have the last release from a band that spanned 40 years and inspired several generations of musicians and artists. A live album, a final live album, to round out a discography that managed to continue to be relevant through the multitude of changes in the popularity of music during that time. It’s a chance to listen, to take stock, and to enjoy.

When it comes down to it, this album really only owes its existence to the fact that it was recorded live just six weeks before Lemmy’s untimely death. That may seem like a simplification, but in essence it is the truth. Yes the tour it was recorded on was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band’s formation and would no doubt have found its way into our hands at some stage because of that. And though there is a changing of the guard when it comes to the set list – not entirely, but probably enough to just make it interesting in comparison to the great live albums of the band’s past – would most people have been inspired enough to buy it if not for the position it now holds?
That position of course is the last ever professionally recorded material by Motörhead prior to Lemmy’s death and the obvious closure of the band as a result. It’s interest does lie in listening to Lemmy performing a mere six weeks before he was diagnosed with the ravenous cancer that took his life a couple of days after the diagnosis. He had been having health problems for a long time, and many shows in the past 18 months had been cancelled because of it. But on these two days he managed to get through both gigs, and the result of that first night is here.
Nostalgia will always win out in the end, and that is what I feel here. Lemmy is noticeably weaker vocally than in the past, and it isn’t just age that is wearying him. The DVD video of this gig shows a man who is wasting away in front of your eyes, and that does come across in the music here. Not so much that it destroys the songs, but in comparison to even the dual live releases of 4-5 years ago it isn’t the same. Still, to hear “When the Sky Comes Looking For You” from the Bad Magic album and “Lost Woman Blues” from the Aftershock album is worth it.

An era ends and it’s a sad way to go. But perhaps this album is a fitting way to do so. Motörhead was always known as a live band, THE live band. They played for their fans and gave their all on stage. Motörhead performed only nine times more after this gig, which gives this recording a special place in music history. It may not be the best live album you will ever hear, but it’s one you should listen to at least once and reflect on the legacy that Motörhead left on the world of music.

Rating: “Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud, so good you can't believe it's screaming with the crowd”. 3.5/5

1080. Motörhead / The Wörld Is Ours - Vol 2: Anyplace Crazy As Anywhere Else [Live]. 2012. 4/5

Much like I said in my review for the previous album, the positives and negatives of live album releases are many and varied. There is little doubt that if a band is going to make a habit of making live releases – something Motörhead has become proficient in over the years – then the material must good enough to encourage the fan to part with their hard earned cash to buy them. This relates not just to the quality of the performances themselves, but the material of which they are performing. A boring live performance makes no one happy.

Putting aside the good things for the moment, there are a couple of problems straight up with this release. The fact that it contains their entire performance from Wacken in 2011 is not one of them, but the set list probably is. Apart from a couple of minor changes it is the same set list that they did for the majority of this tour, and therefore almost identical to the set list found on the previous release. This creates a problem for the fan when it comes to buying, because what is here that is any different to what you may already have? What exacerbates this is the material that is brought in to fill out the second CD, because most of it also has been repeated and on this release itself. For goodness sakes, there are THREE separate versions of “Killed By Death” on this album alone, and I love this song, but surely no one needs three versions of it on! It’s nice to hear the band at Sonisphere and at Rock in Rio, but when it is just the same songs we have already heard it could be described as superfluous.

Despite this, the whole package is another very good live album. The band sounds great, though Lemmy’s vocals do at times sound like they have been given a heavy workout. The idea of recording the tour thoroughly, and giving the fans the chance to hear material from six different concerts over the course of that time is noteworthy. You just have to be up for hearing those songs on multiple occasions. And that’s not always an easy thing to do.

Rating: “We are Motörhead, and we play fucking rock and roll!”.  4/5

1079. Motörhead / The Wörld Is Ours - Vol 1: Everywhere Further Than Everyplace Else [Live]. 2011. 4/5

There are positives and negatives of releasing a live album. But when it comes to a regular litany of live releases the major problem you have is ensuring each has a uniqueness that enables it to be different from the previous live album or the future live album, so that you can maximise the sales. Because let’s face it, if you are only playing the same songs live all the time, then just how do you expect to sell live albums? This is just one of the questions that needs to be acted on when you are on the verge of releasing two live albums, almost back to back.

The Wörld Is Ours - Vol 1: Everywhere Further Than Everyplace Else was recorded over the first half of the tour that followed the release of the album The Wörld Is Yours. With the studio album, this album and the follow up live album it gave Motörhead three years with consecutive album releases, enough for even the most diehard fan to digest.
There are three parts to the two CD collection. It has the entire 17 song setlist from Santiago, Chile in April 2011, with the four final song taking up the first part of the second CD. It contains two songs off the new album (“Get Back in Line” and “I Know How to Die”), two from the previous album Motörizer (“Rock Out” and “The Thousand Names of God”) and one from Inferno (“In the Name of Tragedy”). The remainder are all from the distant past and are mostly classed as the fan favourites.
The remainder of the second CD is filled with songs from two other shows, one in New York and one in Manchester. While there are a few different songs here than were played in Chile, there are also a few double-ups, which seems a little strange for a release such as this. I don’t have a problem with the band filling space with different songs from places they have played on tour, but the same song? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Is this a good live album? Well yes, it is. It fulfills the brief by having new material the band is touring on and the great songs. The question could be asked though as to whether it could be better? Possibly, but that precludes the fact that there are plenty of songs from the band’s back catalogue that I would have liked to have heard. That’s not what this is about. It is a faithful recording of this tour – the first half anyway – and for that it is well worth the effort.

Rating: “You know me, you can't resist, Devil's grip, the iron fist”. 4/5

1078. Motörhead / The Wörld Is Yours. 2010. 3.5/5

Having reached into their fifth decade as a band the ability to stay relevant probably hasn’t ever been at the forefront of the minds of these three gentlemen. From the outside it always appears that they go into the studio and lay down the songs they have inside them at the time. The fact is that by staying true to themselves they have done more to keep their sound alive than they could have by looking for a constant shift in style. And as such they presented as their first album of the 2010’s the disc entitled The Wörld Is Yours.

My immediate reflection was that this is a much more rock ‘n’ roll based album than the band has produced for some time. Since the acquisition of Cameron Webb as producer, a man who has looked to bring out the more heavy and perhaps aggressive side of the music, this is much the direction that the songs have come out. And that isn’t to suggest that this is lacking in either of those elements, it is just that the songs do have that old rock melody infused back into them, something that hasn’t necessarily been the case for some time. Here, at least, is an element that can be used to differentiate this album from the other recent releases. At least one of the titles of the tracks, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music”, sort of makes this a dead giveaway, and this is the most rock ‘n’ roll track of the album.
So with the sound of this album generally pulled back into that rock rhythm, and without any songs that would be called out and out heavy and without any tracks that could be called ballads, we have a Motörhead album that doesn’t have that kind of experimentation. Instead we have ten tracks that settle for that comfortable middle ground that the band does so well, in the style that is the best attribute of the three piece.
“Born to Lose” is a title that has been decades in the making coming as it does from one of Lemmy’s favourite quotes, but it makes for a good opening track. “I Know How to Die” may well be seen to be prophetic in 2018, but more than that it is the upbeat tempo and fun song style that makes the best Motörhead albums. Ditto for “Get Back in Line” and “Devils in My Head” which goes at the same tempo and is fun to sing along to.
“Waiting for the Snake” and “Brotherhood of Man” are the two songs here that are a little off-template in comparison to the others. “Waiting for the Snake” is almost AC/DC-like throughout, holding on to its rhythm pattern all the way through. “Brotherhood of Man” on the other hand has a very “Orgasmatron” guitar sound to, and seems like either a sister track or an effort to revisit that sound from that album. The album then rushes to a conclusion, with “Outlaw” charging hard with drums and guitars blazing. “I Know What You Need” is a cracking track, being one of the harder songs on the album, while the closer “Bye Bye Bitch Bye Bye” leaves noting to the imagination and ends the disc on a highly positive note (musically at least).
While there has been a steady trend in Motorhead’s albums over the previous decade, the ones that stand out from the pack are the ones that have that consistent tempo that is not necessarily super-fast but higher than average through the songs, have Mikkey’s drums standing out in the mix, have Lemmy’s bass leading the rhythm rather than being just a part of it, have Phil’s solo’s and riffs forward and starkly in the mix, and Lemmy’s vocals being strong and bold. All of those boxes get ticked on The Wörld Is Yours.

Motörhead aren’t reinventing the wheel on this album, but perhaps you could say they have at least have a wheel alignment. The extremities have been shaved off, leaving just the good stuff in the middle. And no matter how you felt about those extremities this album is enjoyable just for the fact that they aren’t there this time around. It’s a comfortable release from a band that knows how to do what it does well.

Rating: “I know what you are, I know what you need”. 3.5/5

1077. Motörhead / Motörizer. 2008. 3/5

Keeping up with their regimented routine of releasing new albums on an almost clockwork regularity, Motörhead brought forth the next album in their growing discography in Motörizer toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium. It is perhaps fair to say that this is about the only thing that is ‘new’ about it. Sure, it contains eleven new songs, and for the most part they are good songs, but there isn’t a lot that could be said to be new about them. As always, and especially with this band, that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with them. It all just comes down to a matter of taste, and whether too much of something can end up being too much.

If you’ve listened to a Motörhead album sometime in the past forty years then there is a fair chance that you will recognise the way that most of these songs are set out. There is a formula that can be heard, a framework that sometimes gets stretched or moulded by rarely gets strayed from too far. As long as that is done well, and you can feel the energy flowing from the songs then there really is no problem because the music is what is important. This has been a constant throughout the band’s career, and perhaps most especially since the 1990’s when the band reverted back to the three piece it is on this album, and the line-up that has now been stable since that time. Of all of those album released since Sacrifice, there have been some really good albums, and then just some average albums. The level of intensity in the songs on those albums have been the difference, not the writing itself, as the template has rarely differed.
This is when I sit with Motörizer. That danger of doing album after album that in essence has the same formula with a couple of changes, is that there will be times when it doesn’t have enough inspiration of enough twist or turns to really attract either the new or old fans alike. And for me on this album, it has hit the point where I think I have heard better on more recent albums than this one. I make no secret of the fact that I prefer the songs that are faster and harder, whereas most of this album sits back in a more comfortable tempo that that, and as a result I think the energy doesn’t come flowing through as it does with other releases.
I’ve listened to the album more than half a dozen times over the last couple of days, the first time I have done so since its release ten years ago. I remember first getting the album and give it the mandatory number of listens that a new album gets before I can decide what level it goes to, one that will continue to get multiple spins or one that returns to the cabinet. At the time, it returned to the cabinet. Over the last few days, I can still appreciate it for what it is – a middle-of-the-road Motörhead album. “Runaround Man” and “Teach You How to Sing the Blues” open the album well enough, full of a solid drum beat and hard running guitar riff and grating vocals that always provide for enjoyment. After some average tracks “Buried Alive” brings it back to life by upping the tempo again and reinvigorating the energy levels of the album. “Rock Out” and “Heroes” are enjoyable enough songs, while “The Thousand Names of God” ends the album on a positive note.

The problem here is that there is nothing that is absolutely memorable, a song that immediately lights up the album and allows you to find a point to get into the whole tracklist. There are some good songs and there are some average songs. They are not bad, just average. And that is where this album sits with me now.

Rating:  “The war is never over”.  3/5

1076. Motörhead / Live at Brixton Academy: The Complete Concert. 2003. 5/5

There are moments in a band’s career that are worthy of celebrating a milestone. Having toured and recorded for 25 years is one of those milestones worth remembering. This is what faced Motörhead as they approached the new millennium, and a celebratory concert which not only had a terrific set list but the addition of some special guests is not a bad way to do it. Recorded for posterity, this is what we have with Live at Brixton Academy: The Complete Concert.

For anyone who picked up a copy of the band’s previous live album, Everything Louder Than Everyone Else, there is not a lot new for you. The setlist is slightly changed to incorporate some songs from the We Are Motörhead album which is what they were touring behind at the time. It took three years for this to be released for various reasons, but it is worth it. The performances are just as strong as the other live release, and of course there are a few added surprises.
You can take your pick as to what is the best addition to the line-up, and everyone will have their own opinion. On “Born to Raise Hell” the band are joined by Doro Pesch and Whitfield Crane. While Doro’s appearance could be construed as ‘convenient’, Whitfield of course sang on the version of this song that was released on the soundtrack of the movie Airheads alongside Ice T. Nothing much to write home about here to be honest. Slightly more interesting is the appearance of two songs on “Killed by Death”, with Todd Campbell – son of Phil – and Paul Inder – son of Lemmy – appearing on stage and joining in on guitars and some vocals. This was a nice moment for all involved. For me the best moment is the re-appearance of “Fast” Eddie Clarke, who comes on stage and struts his stuff on “The Chase is Better Than the Catch” as well as the closing “Overkill”. Hearing Clarke play his classic solo in “Overkill” again is worth listening to this album by itself. However, along with those that have already appeared coming back for the final song, it also includes Ace from Skunk Anansie and the legendary Brian May from Queen also coming out and adding their guitars to the mix, making it a real celebration to complete the night.

While the album of this gig is terrific, I recommend trying to find a copy of 25 & Alive: Boneshaker if you can, which is the video of the gig. It is exactly the same as this CD but being able to see the band playing it does add to the experience.

Rating: “We are Motörhead… and we’re here to clean your clock”. 5/5

1075. Motörhead / Kiss of Death. 2006. 3.5/5

For as long as I can remember, the general public line about a new AC/DC album has been “oh well, it will just sound like the last one, they’re all the same”. And in many ways that will be true, because the band has their style and they stick to it, because they know they’re good at it, and they know that people will buy it. And that is the main point, they know what their fans like, and so they give it to them. Which is a roundabout way of me coming to review this Motörhead album, Kiss of Death, because if you’ve heard Motörhead before you already know what is on this album. But the best part is… you know you’ll like it.

Kiss of Death utilises the same producer from their previous album Inferno, Cameron Webb, who actively looked to make a more aggressive album. That has flowed on here to their follow up, with the energy that was prevalent on that release once again coming to the fore here. Everything that you hear on this album is quintessential Motörhead and that’s what makes it a good album still. There is something for everyone but more than that there is something for every fan of the band.
You can break the album up into four sections in order to get the best representation of what is gathered here. There are the fast paced and upbeat songs that draw you in, including the scorching opening track “Sucker”, the excellent “Trigger” and “Sword of Glory”, as well as the bonus track on the CD, the re-recorded tribute to The Ramones, simply entitled “R.A.M.O.N.E.S”. These are the four songs that rip along at that pleasing pace that helps makes Motörhead songs great. Then you have the high energy songs, some of which are faster paced and others that are just pushed out there. These include the head bouncing “One Night Stand”, “Devil I Know”, “Christine”, “Be My Baby” and “Going Down”. From here you are faced with the mid-tempo songs, the ones that are paced back in the rock ‘n’ roll section but are no les enjoyable as a result. Here you will find tracks such as “Under the Gun”, “Living in the Past” and “Kingdom of the Worm”.
Mixed in with all of these tracks is the ballad “God Was Never on Your Side”, another of Lemmy’s lyrical postulations on religion and those that lead and follow within the various forms that exist. It’s an interesting song, both musically as it challenges the band and Lemmy’s vocals and takes them to a position that has been tried before by this band but never really successfully, and lyrically as it highlights conventions that certainly can be questioned. As with previous songs of this genre on other Motörhead albums, I think it tends to pull back the momentum of the album at a crucial time, though on this occasion I do quite like the song itself.

Returning to theme of the opening, there is a lot here that will be familiar to fans and the public at large. Mikkey Dee’s hard banging drums are prevalent as always and are still the driving force behind each song. Phil Campbell’s licks and riffs are as potent as the ever have been, and his punctuating solos just as effective. Riding over the crest of the wave is Lemmy’s unique bass sound and vocals that both still give as much pleasure as they did 30 years previous. So come aboard and enjoy yet another terrific release from a terrific band who fought every conceivable change in music over their career and still found their place in the music world.

Rating: “Living in a nightmare, broken dreams, love turned mean, living in the past”. 3.5/5

1074. Motörhead / Inferno. 2004. 3.5/5

For whatever reason – and there are always a multitude of them – I had never listened to this album until I decided to go through the entire Motörhead discography a couple of months ago. In fact I wasn’t even aware that it existed. I had copies of Hammered and Kiss of Death and a big gap in between them. So discovering that it existed and then tracking down a copy to listen to was a fun experience. I wasn’t sure what I expected when I got it. After all, the mid-2000’s was a tricky time for bands of other eras. What I found was, for the most part, surprising.

“Terminal Show” signals the album’s intentions immediately. This is more than just a rock album, this is hard and heavy and fast, with Phil’s guitar screaming out of the speakers with fire and gusto. “Killers” continues on what is an aggressive theme with the boundlessly hard hitting drums of Mikkey driving the guitars to a head-thumping rhythm. “In the Name of Tragedy” and “Suicide” bring back the intensity of the speed and fall back into the military medium rhythm that is the second home of Motörhead’s music. It is the style that you can easily become bored with over time a the song’s central riff and drum fill pretty much remains the same all the way through the song. In some instances it works, usually on the shorter songs. Here on “Suicide” though, at five minutes plus, it can start to get a bit beyond it by the end of the song.
“Life’s a Bitch” goes in a different direction, starting out almost like an old fashion early day’s Elvis rock song, and that beginning lingers on even once you have moved into the song itself. It’s that riff from Phil that sends through those memories. “Down on Me” is a grittier harder song with Phil’s guitar riffing along hard with Lemmy’s bass and Lemmy’s vocals hard at work as well. “In the Black” continues on in this vein, and doubles down a little with Mikkey’s drums coming in harder and more prominently here. I won’t deny I like this song, though it is a real extension of the Motörhead sound, much heavier than they usually like to play. So too “Fight” which is hard and aggressive. I enjoy this section of the album because it does show a side of the band that they haven’t always portrayed, that real heavy metal side that they have generally shied away from in always suggesting they are a rock ‘n’ roll band. This lifts the harder profile, even if it is only through this section.
“In the Year of the Wolf” and “Keys of the Kingdom” change it up again, but still in a completely enjoyable way, while “Smiling Like a Killer” is actually the most ‘normal’ Motörhead song on the album.
Once you get big enough that you don’t have to worry what anybody thinks about you, you can start to do songs that may be considered out of your normal space by critics and/or fans. This is certainly the case here with the final song on the album, as Lemmy does his best Johnny Cash impersonation with “Whorehouse Blues”, an unapologetic blues number that is the antithesis of every other song on the album. It sticks out like a sore thumb, though given it comes at the very end at least it isn’t sucking the momentum out of the album halfway through. In the end you’ll either enjoy this song or just stop the CD once you get to this point. I am more in favour of the second option.

Motörhead’s career has been littered with albums that have varied as to the amount of harder rock they have utilised. Some come out and are very much straight down the line rock ‘n’ roll with a bit more guitar thrown in, while others have ramped it up a little to move to that harder side of the line. This one has certainly had that harder edge to it, without compromising the style the band has been delivering for three decades. Apart from the obvious couple of songs that steer clear of this pigeon-holing of their sound, this album has a lot to offer for those who like me enjoy that heavier sound.

Rating: “Don't give me that runaround, you know I treat you fine”.   3.5/5

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”

1072. Motörhead / Snake Bite Love. 1998. 2.5/5

If there is one major factor that you can’t take away from this band, it’s that they never stopped producing albums on a regular basis. For the most part, no more than a couple of years ever separated albums being released. That’s a tough thing to do, to keep finding inspiration and ideas on such a scale as to be able to fill the required volume that an album must have. To keep the quality of the product high enough to convince the fans to keep buying them also takes some ability. Somewhere in that, there has to come a time when the product doesn’t quite stack up, and that either more time should have been taken in either writing or recording the album – or both – or that perhaps there needed to be a longer time between releases to ensure everything was right. Maybe, just maybe, this album is one of those points in time for Motörhead.
In several interviews and books, drummer Mikkey Dee has been vehement in his disappointment with the album as a whole, a couple of songs in particular, and the fact that it had all been done so quickly, without any thought of extending. Dee was quoted as saying an extra three weeks would have allowed the band to produce a ‘great’ album instead of a ‘shit’ album.
The previous album “Overnight Sensation” had been the first written and recorded back as a three piece, and so it was hoped that now that the band had settled on this again, that the writing would turn out as solid. Some quarters suggest that the missing piece of Wurzel’s writing may have been an influence in the changing style of the songs. No matter where opinion may lie, there is little doubt that the result is mixed.

Motörhead has always been at its best for me when the tempo is right and the songs have the right mix of heavy guitar and rock ‘n’ roll feel. For the most part there is very little of that balance here. “Love for Sale” and “Dogs of War” start the album off well enough but don’t light any fire like previous Motörhead albums have. The title track “Snake Bite Love” tries to inject a bit of old-fashioned rock ‘n roll into a heavier riff, while “Assassin” changes up the template but doesn’t really work.
“Take the Blame” that follows is probably the best song on the album. It has that fast pace, with blazing drums from Mikkey Dee in particular that dominate the track underneath Phil’s guitar and Lemmy’s bass and vocals, and the attitude that makes the best Motorhead songs.
“Dead and Gone” however is another Motörhead ballad, a style of genre that seems so alien to a band like Motörhead that it continues to be a surprise whenever I find a song like it on their albums. It just doesn’t fit with them, no matter how well written or played it might be. Certainly, Lemmy’s vocals never suit such a song which isn’t a criticism, it’s just a fact. In my opinion at least.
“Night Side” on the other hand just feels like it was thrown together in about five minutes, both musically and lyrically. In many ways it sums up how the whole album comes across, and it comes back to what has been said by the members of the band in the years since. “Don’t Lie to Me” is a typical Motorhead rock n’ roll song, combining that with a fast paced blues guitar progression that is fun enough to listen to, while “Joy of Labour” settles into that slow tempo that reveals the cracks in anything except top shelf Motörhead songs. Listening to Lemmy struggle over the vocals here makes it tough going.
Still, even these songs don’t quite prepare you for what can only be described as the boredom and sameness of the closing two tracks, “Desperate for You” and “Better Off Dead”. Neither of these songs provide even a glimmer of hope for the album. It’s a standard Motörhead progression while Lemmy’s doubled vocals can’t hide the weak lyrical content. It’s not that they are played poorly, just that they are both pulled from the same playbook that has been worn so thin that there is nothing stylish left. The tempo of the tracks is fine, which is at least a positive, but is no magic here that lifts them to a level that is worth getting excited about.

As it turns out, I had never heard this album until more than a decade after its release. Most of Motorhead tended to vanish from the perimeter for a good number of years, and I more or less stuck with the albums that I already knew rather than seeking out their new material when it was released. It wasn’t until around 2010 that I began to go back and find those albums released in that previous 15 years to see just what the band had put up as their offerings, and it is fair to say there was some gems and some wet molten mud. This one was one of the ones that I had problems with overall. The album is just a solid album. It doesn’t really have any highlights, and songs you would pick out to throw on a playlist for the car of a party. And it has a couple of songs that just make you look for the skip button. Which, of course, in the end, is how the damning aspect of an album can be judged.
The continuing changes in the music scene at the turn of the century had affected many long-term bands, with releases by bands like Metallica and Megadeth in particular dividing fans with the changes they had made. The differences here are not through experimentation of changes in taste in the band, but perhaps just through running out of ideas as to how to best bring forth the music that fans of the band loved. They were also battling it out with industrial metal and nu-metal which was the rising force of popularity at the time, which made it all the more difficult to find yourself heard. Whether this albums suffers most from that, or from rushing too much in the writing and recording to really pull out the average songs and replace them with a variant, or if it was simply just a lack of inspiration, this ends up being only an average album in the band’s discography.