Archive Review: Motörhead’s Motörizer (2008)

Just one question: why isn’t Motörhead in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? If there was ever a band that epitomizes the road warrior ethic, a lifelong dedication to the rock ‘n’ roll muse, it’s this gang. Motörhead’s 24th album, Motörizer provides another good argument for the band’s ticket to Cleveland. These songs don’t just sit there on the slab o’ plastic like some stinkin’ corpse, they leap out of your speakers with bloodlust, a knife in their teeth and evil on today’s “to do” list. Lemmy’s liquor-soaked blues-metal growl is complimented by Filthy Phil’s napalm-strength fretwork while drummer Mikkey Dee delivers a good old-fashioned mugging. Songs like the pub-rocking “English Rose” or the brutal “Buried Alive” are landmines itching to trigger, displaying a mix of punk attitude and metallic overkill. Motörizer is a hellbound train, with Lemmy K at the helm…hold on for the ride of your life! (Steamhammer Records/SPV Music, released August 26th, 2008)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2008...

Archive Review: Motörhead's Inferno (2004)

Motörhead has been this “legendary heavy metal band” for so long that even many critics have overlooked the metal icon’s overall importance in the grand scheme of things. Frontman Lemmy Kilminster’s roots are in typical ’60s-era British R&B, but it’s when he joined prog-rockers Hawkwind that things began to get interesting. As bassist for the space-rock outfit during the early ’70s, Lemmy perfected both his bottom-heavy instrumental style and his songwriting skills.

When kicked out of Hawkwind for a myriad of offenses, Lemmy formed Motörhead as an outlet for his aggressive hard rock vision, equal parts British biker culture, pre-punk punk rock attitude, and heavy metal thunder. Over the course of dozens of albums, Lemmy and Motörhead's ever-evolving line-up managed to affect punk, heavy metal, and thrash unlike any other artistic influence.

Motörhead's Inferno

For almost thirty years, Motörhead’s musical blueprint has been consistent and consistently powerful: Lemmy’s gruff vocals spitting out lyrics above a massive slab of feedback-driven guitar riffs and thunderous drumbeats. Inferno, the band’s latest, doesn’t stray far from the formula. The blistering “Terminal Show” kicks off the disc, a futuristic tale of woe set to a speed metal soundtrack that careens out of control approx. 30 seconds into the song, guest axeman Steve Vai’s razor sharp leads standing in counterpoint to Phillip Campbell’s percussive riffs.

From here, the pace never diminishes, drummer Mikkey Dee’s merciless rhythms driving the songs forward while Lemmy’s bass bludgeons the listener and Campbell’s six-string work punches with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The only surprise on Inferno, perhaps, is the acoustic “Whorehouse Blues,” an overt reference to the influence of traditional blues (and British blues-rock) on Motörhead’s metallic sturm-und-drang.

Inferno is both timeless and out-of-time, Lemmy serving up uncompromising rock ‘n’ roll field-tested by better than a quarter-century of hard roadwork. In Campbell and Dee, Kilminster has the band he’s always wanted, the iron fist inside the tattered leather glove. Like most Motörhead albums, Inferno is dominated by themes of sex, death, power, and the near-mystical aesthetic of rock ‘n’ roll. The songs roar like a wolf at the door and scream louder than Dante’s nightmares, Motörhead an anachronistic thorn in the side of the music business, the rude guest that refuses to leave the modern rock party.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

You won't hear Inferno on the radio, but its importance will be felt five or ten years from now when the kid who discovers Motörhead through this album forms the next Metallica or Nirvana. In the end, Lemmy won’t be remembered so much for the remarkable simplicity and strength of his music but for the young musicians who continue to be influenced by the uncompromising honesty and anarchistic spirit that is Motörhead. (Steamhammer Records, 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2004

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Motörhead's Inferno

Book Review: Martin Popoff's Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers The Rise of Motörhead

In this scribe’s humble opinion, no other band epitomizes the pure, undistilled spirit of rock ‘n’ roll more than Motörhead. A saber-rattling golem formed from spilled whiskey, broken glass, and handfuls of amphetamines, Motörhead lurked forward from the shadows of the back alleyways of the United Kingdom to rock the world. Lemmy K’s musical leviathan toured constantly for nearly four decades until, literally, the band’s erstwhile frontman could no long stand upright on stage and sing.

Motörhead was equally influential (and well-liked) by punk rockers, metalheads, and your garden-variety punters, and although none of their 30 or so studio and live albums enjoyed overwhelming commercial success, they sold well enough to sustain the band’s lengthy tenure in the trenches. Why they haven’t been inducted into the joke that is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is beyond my comprehension – perhaps their reputation for grime upsets the delicate sensitivities of Mr. Wenner and his HoF gatekeepers – but the band’s loyal fans recognize Motörhead as the rock ‘n’ roll pioneers that they were.

Martin Popoff’s Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers

Writer and heavy metal historian Martin Popoff is no newcomer to Motörhead. The founder and editor of Canada’s esteemed Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles music zine, Popoff has penned 55+ books on hard rock and heavy metal, including acclaimed tomes on Deep Purple, Yes, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, and Dio, among many, many others (really – check out his website!). In the interest of full disclosure, Popoff is also a colleague and a buddy of mine, and I’ve enjoyed and positively reviewed a number of his books. In many cases, Popoff’s work stands as the last word on his subjects, and if his recent Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers: The Rise of Motörhead isn’t necessarily the final tale to be written about this influential gang of sonic terrorists, it is certain to be the cornerstone of any other author’s future effort.

With Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers, Popoff literally recounts only the “rise of Motörhead,” circa 1975 through 1982. Rather than attempt to chronicle the band’s entire 40 year history, Popoff instead chooses to cover the band’s early “classic era” line-up, the primal power-trio of bassist Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke,” and drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor that recorded such enduring hard rock albums as Overkill, Bomber, Ace of Spades, and the bruising live set, No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith. As per his usual ‘modus operandi,’ Popoff assembles the story from numerous interviews with the principal artists as well as providing comments from conversations with other musicians.

The Rise of Motörhead

Popoff begins the Motörhead story with Lemmy’s initial ‘60s-era bands (The Rocking Vicars, cult rockers Sam Gopal), his stint as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, and his short, tho’ ultimately important tenure with U.K. space-rock pioneers Hawkwind. Lemmy first appeared on Hawkwind’s third album, 1972’s Doremi Fasol Latido, subsequently recording 1974’s Hall of the Mountain Grill and the following year’s Warrior on the Edge of Time, as well as the classic 1973 double-live set Space Ritual. Lemmy also penned Hawkwind’s lone hit single in “Silver Machine” before he was booted from the band for his well-documented recreational excesses. One could say that, in many ways, Lemmy put together Motörhead in response to his sacking by Hawkwind, a move that may have affected Lemmy greatly but essentially set the stage for him to pursue his own unique musical muse with his own band. From this point, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers follows Motörhead from its early stumbles in both the studio and on stage as the band eventually gelled with the aforementioned line-up of Lemmy, Clarke, and Taylor.

The author dives deep into the blood, sweat, and tears spent in the writing and recording of the band’s classic early albums; the interpersonal dynamics that helped create such speed-fueled, tension-filled music; and the eventual conflicts that broke this beloved line-up of the band apart. Musicians and fans of the band such as Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Brian Robertson (Thin Lizzy, and a future Motörhead member), producer Sandy Pearlman (Blue Öyster Cult, The Clash), and Hawkwind’s Dave Brock and Nik Turner, among others, all provide their perspective, while interviews with Clarke and Taylor, as well as Lemmy’s bandmates in the band’s final incarnation, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee, help round out the story.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The Reverend has read better than 60% of Popoff’s books to date, and I can honestly say that Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers: The Rise of Motörhead stands proudly as one of his best efforts. Although he unfolds the band’s story chronologically, the author eschews his frequently-used timeline approach in creating a narrative in favor of following the band from album-to-album, using each recording as a milestone, and allowing the band members and other interviewees to color between the lines.

The result is an entertaining and informative read that sheds no little light into the often-enigmatic Lemmy K. and his life’s work, Motörhead, documenting the early years of one of rock music’s most beloved and underrated outfits. The Rev highly recommends Beer Drinker and Hell Raisers for both hardcore Motörhead fans (duh) as well as anybody who lives and breathes rock ‘n’ roll. Grade: A+ (ECW Press, published May 9th, 2017)

Buy the book from Amazon: Martin Popoff's Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers

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Martin Popoff's Time and A Word - The Yes Story
Surfing the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with Martin Popoff