Motorhead - Metal's Blazing Fury

I believe the following definitions are appropriate. “Metal” is that species of the rock genre formed when, after the shift from rhythm and blues (Rolling Stones) to hard rock (Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult), just as the latter had broken free from the former thanks to sharper, harder and heavier sounds, a further break occurred through even greater hardness and heaviness, aimed at expressing systematically and speculatively pessimistic themes (with a Manichean, superstitious view of the world) and epic ones (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Rainbow, Diamond Head, Venom, and, definitively, Iron Maiden). “Heavy metal,” on the other hand, is that breaking-away (carried out in 1983 by Metallica) from hard rock (itself such only insofar as it had dialectically freed itself from rhythm and blues) by means of hardcore (extreme punk: halved tempos, doubled violence). Heavy metal multiplies a hundredfold and fuses the doses of hardness, heaviness and speed of classic metal, also seeking to reflect an existential humus different from that of its parent category: no more epic, no more fantasy, no more dream, nor good-versus-evil ambivalence; only hyperrealism, materialism, self-destruction that is moreover non-cathartic. Metal (like punk, of which it represents an antithesis within “heavy” music) is an eminently English phenomenon. Heavy metal (like hardcore) is American.

Just as Black Sabbath are the fathers, and therefore “other” than, metal (than Iron Maiden); so Motorhead are the fathers, and therefore “other” than, heavy metal (than Metallica).

Motorhead were first and foremost a force of nature; an untamable, feral instinct, oblivious to everything. Theirs was a “cultural” revolution on a par with that of the Sex Pistols. Being left to their own devices, having no agenda, and the fact that the effects of their innovations unfolded over at least six years (1977-1983), prevented them from being identified as the banner or the scapegoat of a movement that is the most extreme, irreducible, wild and incendiary in the history of rock music. Part of heavy metal, which branched out into thrash metal and speed metal, is also (from 1988 onward, the year Death's “Leprosy” came out) the point of no return par excellence, invalicable by definition: death metal.

And to think it was only meant to be garage rock, if not rock 'n' roll, simply “heavier,” faster, noisier, more monolithic and more unstoppable than average (than the “average” of any era, though) — that was the Motorhead of the mid-Seventies. But the story of Ian Kilmister, that is of Lemmy, that is of Motorhead, begins much earlier.

Born (to an Anglican priest) on December 24th (and what a date...) 1945 in Stoke-on-Trent, a not exactly cheerful town in central England between Manchester and Birmingham, Kilmister (the negation par excellence of the Beatles and of pop, from which he's as distant — albeit for slightly different reasons — as Mozart is from them) arrived at popular music during the “British Invasion” period of the early Sixties. He played first in the Rainmakers, then in the Rockin' Vickers, then in Opal Butterfly: all bands a notch or more above, in terms of power and impact, their contemporaries — acts that played or replayed rock 'n' roll, oblivious to (because they couldn't care less about) the crisis/death of the genre, overwhelmed first by “vocal groups” (the Beatles), then by the “psychedelic” movement (the 13th Floor Elevators). “Psychedelia” is the magic word for the future Lemmy, the one that allows him to express himself against pop. He's taught it by Jimi Hendrix (three years his senior), whose roadie he was during his long English stays between 1966 and 1969 (musically, Hendrix was born in England, where he was brought by Chas Chandler, ex-Animals, who gave him a backing band, had him record the cover of “Hey Joe,” the 45 of the masterpiece “Purple Haze,” and introduced him to Donovan).

Hawkwind invented space rock, a style on the border between hard rock and acid rock, which combined the former's overwhelming sonic power with the latter's free improvisation. Kilmister was their bassist between 1971 and 1974 (on the albums “Doremi Fasol Latido,” “Space Ritual,” “Hall of the Mountain Grill”), and there he found all the inspiration for that violent, repetitive, obsessive, hammering music that would become Motorhead's.

Motorhead were born in 1975, in London, when the now-Lemmy left (due to personal issues tied to drugs, and, more than artistic differences, the end of any common ground between an old world and a new one in the making) Hawkwind, after writing for them the single, of all things, titled “Motorhead.” And so Motorhead were born with a superb lineup (among the greatest, if not technically then certainly in impact, and influential compositionally, of all time): Lemmy plays bass like a rhythm guitar that is in turn played like a machine gun but powerful as a cannon, and bellows blasphemies at the top of his lungs (a voice scraped raw by millions of cigarettes) like no one else, with a force and a wild fury never seen before (or perhaps only in Iggy Stooge, who however lacked such power); Eddie Clark (filtered through psychedelia, rhythm 'n' blues and rock 'n' roll) is the father of thrash-metal guitarists, with riffs as sharp and thunderous as if they fused Chuck Berry's chords with millions of watts; Phil Taylor is a galactic drummer, the most powerful of his time (and one who contributed decisively to the transition into modern metal drumming), and the fact that he “held together” a rhythm section alongside Lemmy's murderous bass can only confirm his greatness (Phil Taylor institutionalized the double-bass-drum setup, after Judas Priest had introduced it).

The band's stated goal when they formed was to be the “worst and loudest band in the world.” They succeeded, which is exactly why they rank among the “best.” The old rocker, the toughest hide of them all, who has crossed the entire history of rock like a runaway tank from the Sixties to today, an alcoholic (the liver that still allows him to “live” would deserve a diagnostic study), a misanthrope, an erotomaniac, a hell's angel, “born to lose, lived to win,” Lemmy was its very emblem. With a hefty dose of primitive brutality and self-irony, he embraced all the self-destructive excesses of his guardian angel Jimi Hendrix (sex included), spitting on everything and everyone (these excesses and role models first of all), just like Sid Vicious. It is this bestiality/inhumanity that allowed him to survive within a nihilism so deep-rooted that it even mocks and parodies suicide itself (death always within reach, yet seemingly unable to close the deal, even with figures like Lemmy who repeatedly do everything they can to provoke it). You can't get more punk than that (an incurable scoundrel); Lemmy is the punk nature par excellence, even if — as his music shows — more “heavy” and extreme than punk itself. Punk before punk and punk after punk. His genius lies in being stupid; locked in a compulsion to repeat “No” to anything that crosses his path; to himself too, if facing a mirror. Punk because he will not even be part of the punk movement; an “unmanageable,” violent, quarrelsome, misanthropic nonconformist, oblivious to the word “compromise” and irreducible to anything.

The sound of Motorhead — the least “poseur” band, and the most vulgar and politically incorrect, if not the most of all in history — starts from that of Hawkwind, though simplified and intensified into a primal concentrate of rock 'n' roll and metal (Motorhead make sonic extremism their unconditional creed: this is why they are the fathers of metal as heaviness): monolithic and unstoppable, of crushing simplicity (the Motorhead brand is recognizable after three notes) and unmatched effectiveness. In the shaker-like effect of their more formulaic, disposable tracks, Motorhead come closer to the self-mumbling of the Ramones (fathers of, and as usual “other” than, hardcore) rather than to the variety of the Sex Pistols (the practicing fathers of punk which, we might say, being pure, was born and died with them). Later, when Metallica (who contributed, like prodigal sons, to Motorhead's “posthumous” fame) made “Lemmy” conscious of what he had brought to fruition, he would fully embrace thrash and speed; but without ever losing that characteristic (perhaps that's what disfigured, through acid and alcohol, the London suburbs) Southern-rock-on-the-road feel of his.

In 1977 came out (preceded in 1976 by On Parole, reissued in 1979, to which the same applies) Motorhead, featuring the eponymous track already heard with Hawkwind. What has been said above is, for now, a promise — one that would nonetheless soon be fulfilled. Partly due to the terrifying flatness of the sound, also owing to a literally lo-fi production (a flatness that would also mark the next two albums, though these were already or increasingly powerful), and partly due to the inevitable Hawkwind legacy, the album (which would reach No. 43 on the charts) is, to be fair (even if cutting-edge for its time, it now sounds enormously dated), merely the band's calling card or statement of intent — a band whose name derives from American slang for “speed freak,” referring to the effects of amphetamines. What's missing, finally, are compositionally and thematically memorable songs (even if the lyrics — vulgar, gruesome, offensive, hyperrealistic — are anthropologically interesting: Lemmy doesn't write what he thinks but what he literally does: and this creates an extra bit of astonishment in the listener).

In 1978 came the single “Louie Louie”, a tribute from the band to its primary source of inspiration (though note how it's transfigured by Lemmy's always-on-the-edge voice, powerful and raspy at once, and by the hammering salvos of bass guitar and drums): Fifties rock'n'roll.

Then, in 1979, came Overkill. The title track that opens the album exhausts: 1) everything this record has to say; 2) everything Motorhead have had, and will ever have, to say (which thus becomes a matter of “repeating themselves”); 3) a great deal of what metal as a species and rock as a genre actually mean. Before “describing” the song “Overkill” it's only right to make clear that it stands as a generational anthem on a par with “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and consequently one of the relatively few rock songs that matter most, both in technical influence and semantic weight, in the whole history of the genre.

Another important clarification: for at least the first two albums, the Motorhead “sound” wasn't yet the Motorhead sound we know, due to technical limitations not of their instruments but of the mixing desks (the age-old problem that dogged every “heavy” band like a curse at least until the early Eighties, if not, in some cases, well past the Nineties). Yet that still-muffled sound, compared to what came later, stood as the loudest, most violent and obsessive, heaviest sound since the birth of rock. In 1979 the first punk season was already buried and about to be swallowed up by the dark implosion (Joy Division): heavy metal hadn't yet revealed its true nature, it simply wasn't there yet; of rock'n'roll, aside from the Cramps (and even then, in their own way), there was no trace; pure hard rock was going through one of its most sterile phases. In 1979 Motorhead stepped into this static uncertainty and pushed it to the point of saturation, into an irresistible explosion (Metallica). Not punk (or punk only in attitude), not metal (or metal only in the sheer heaviness of the sound), not rock'n'roll (except in rhythm): Motorhead, the squarest of the square, found this condition in a primordial mixture of forces that, from this prehistoric state, Metallica would later bring to their definitive realization. Hard rock, then, is what Motorhead played: but only in the strict, exclusively etymological sense of the term: hardness plus rock'n'roll. For everything else, they were proto- and post- of everything.

“Overkill” begins hammering and ends hammering, inventing the rhythmic carpet that trash metal would later claim as its own, and deploying a lead guitar still rooted in Chuck Berry (but twisted, with what emphatic distortion!) that tries, and brilliantly succeeds, to “steer” with countless slashing strokes the relentless direction stubbornly held by the destructive bass-and-drums pairing. The song is built on an obsessive repetition, by bass and drums, of this trash-carpet rhythm, in a sequence of accelerations and more laid-back stretches (very relatively so, for a track, like every Motorhead track, that knows neither compromise nor a moment's breath), where Lemmy's raw, Charon-like voice finds its place, ending up sharpening things even more than the already-sharpened instrumental parts. And what does Lemmy's voice say: “Don't sweat it, get in back to you”, “Overkill”. For the record, “overkill” in English denotes an overload that causes the object it's applied to to blow out, like a light bulb burning itself up (in the futuristic/horror cover art, the head of the group's hooked, metallic monster-symbol explodes). But commonly it's used to mean “an excessive measure or treatment”. Which is exactly what Motorhead do to rock'n'roll music (Fifties rock'n'roll, mind you, not Sixties rock!). So Lemmy's scream of “Overkill”, delivered as a piece of life advice to the listener, can be read as “kill everyone/destroy everything”. After three minutes this metallic earthquake, this rock-crushing machine, grinds to a halt: one second, and when it starts up again it does so with an unstoppable flaying of everything by all three instruments, which, in the memorable finale, restate twice over, with two false stops and restarts, their unstoppable, dynamite-charged, destructive drive.

“Stay Clean” is another excellent, uncompromising track: starting from a very rock'n'roll base, it sets off into what will be the usual detonation: it marks the shift from an apocalyptic dimension (“Overkill”) to a more “narrative” and everyday one, reflecting the average Motorhead lifestyle (scruffy, alcoholic, drifting, tragically self-mocking), a trio of “lost souls” roaming the dusty roads of a modern cowboy America (in '79 Motorhead were still based in London, and so, like Black Sabbath on a different level, they were distorting the urban landscape from afar: but later they would genuinely live this post-western America). “(I Won't) Pay Your Price” still keeps to the economy of timing, message and scale of a rock'n'roll song (whose stylistic devices it revisits and updates), as is always the case with Motorhead, and as always with Motorhead there's a catchy, singable chorus — even at breakneck tempos. Still the dust of the great West, still that sense of having to react to and adapt to the endless stretches of cactus and motels. “I'll Be Your Sister” carries on varying the theme, confirming that this album has no weak spots and packs one classic (a track that “will set the template” for everyone) after another. “Capricorn” rises above an already excellent record, establishing itself as the best of the best: the mood darkens existentially, taking on a bleak, disheartened black, almost post-romantic and melancholic, even futuristic and spatial, in a kind of cosmic, stellar dimension. “No Class” would become a must (see Wendy Williams's cover, as Lemmy himself said: “I had that one coming”, from the Plasmatics' “Coup d'Etat” in 1981): one of the band's flagship songs. Flawless in every part, the ultimate distillation of the Motorhead creed, yet for all its programmatic quality it still seems to fall slightly short of the previous track. “Damage Case” carries doggedly on in a gigolo-at-the-gas-station dimension, somewhere among the scattered villages of the American prairie. It will, needless to say, set the template: and deservedly so. “Tear Ya Down” refines the formula, slightly toning down — make no mistake, only slightly — the violence, and leaning it more toward meditation (Black Sabbath) than action (Sex Pistols). “Metropolis” is the third masterpiece among the masterpieces on this album: a Sabbath-like stride, with Lemmy's voice dejectedly saying “Metropolis, the worlds collide, ain't nobody could be on your side”; “I don't care” is priceless and extraordinary. “Limb from Limb” closes things out in style (though Lemmy's style is never gratuitous or an end in itself: it's always lived through his own skin, always the fruit of an experience devastating for others, always existential, sincere, precious, compelling), bringing a masterpiece of an album to a close.

Let's justify ourselves: take the album that invented speed metal (side A) and thrash metal (side B), Metallica's “Kill 'Em All”, 1983. Without Motorhead, that album would have been impossible. Where the guitars are concerned, Metallica brought about a revolution — partly foreshadowed by Iron Maiden, who invented classic metal, and by Venom, who developed it — and they did so with a speed and power of execution never seen before; but as far as the rhythm section goes, Metallica owe almost everything to Lemmy and Phil Taylor. Especially for the thrash side of their work. Side one of “Kill 'Em All” (a title that's essentially a translation/interpretation of “Overkill”) brought about one of the most radical transformations in rock history; in fact, perhaps no other band (aside from the Sex Pistols) has packed so much innovation into a single album (it's no small thing to invent two different musical genres, let alone invent them both on one record: and that's what Metallica did): from “Hit the Lights” to “Whiplash” (by way of “Motorbreath”, a supreme tribute to Lemmy), “Kill 'Em All” lays down and applies the rules of speed metal, leaving the listener literally open-mouthed. Then, from “Phantom Lord” to “Metal Militia”, Metallica institutionalize thrash metal (which differs from speed in having sounds that are less sharp and fast, and more expansive and epic: just look at the tempos of the tracks: if speed is metal's application of hardcore, thrash is metal's application of the Velvet Underground's noise), and in that institutionalization lies the full weight of Motorhead's influence. Especially in the rhythm section: listen to the ending of “No Remorse” or the middle section of “Seek & Destroy”, and your speakers will spell out M-O-T-O-R-H-E-A-D. But Metallica didn't invent just two genres, but four. 1) speed, 2) thrash, 3) heavy, 4) rock-metal. Point three isn't pedantry but a real fact (“Ride the Lightning”, “Master of Puppets”, “...And Justice for All”) and it stems from moving beyond points 1 and 2 (that is, beyond Motorhead) into a dimension that synthesizes both into a notably different product (it's no accident that many early fans who hadn't grasped this abandoned Metallica after their second album). Rock-metal, on the other hand, is born (“Metallica”, “Load”, “Reload”) from a return to the roots (Motorhead's hard rock) via broadly “country”-flavored injections into that heavy power. If Metallica have been among the most influential bands of all time, Motorhead have been just as influential as their point of reference.

Bomber also came out in 1979, and it's the best studio album Motorhead ever made, alongside Overkill. In 1979 Lemmy must have had an incredible, unfailing streak of inspiration: proof of that are “Poison” (an anthem that would wake the dead, over the top, as they say, and coming from a societal outcast that's really saying something) and “Stone Dead Forever” (an existential, martial track with no equal). It's an inspiration that's also varied, even while staying within the sonic whirlwind: “Talking Head” is moving in its bitter (and never overplayed, never rhetorical: Motorhead are never rhetorical: Motorhead are real: people first, musicians second, and consequently) melodicism, “Sweet Revenge” steeps itself in dark psychedelia, enshrining a Sabbath-like guitar (with bass and drums, oddly for Motorhead, playing a backing role rather than screaming themselves) that resurfaces in “Step Down”, an almost-instrumental of real quality and substance: it takes on the entire legacy of American country-rock and reinterprets it through the emotional charge of London post-punk. For “Bomber” [the song], see what was said about “No Class” (of which it is something of an alter ego). Bomber is a more introspective album than Overkill, as if Lemmy, within a single year, wanted to show every side of himself: the public, flashy side and the private one. And he pulled it off brilliantly.

Ace of Spades is Motorhead's best-selling studio album: its motto is Lemmy's own (from the title track that opens the record): “Born to lose – live to win”. The band is at its peak, and it shows. The album is built on flawless execution and absolute solidity. At last the production and mixing prove equal to the task: the sound and the overall quality of the work benefit enormously from it. The post-western atmospheres (fully embraced even by the cover art, where the ace of spades of the title stands out as a symbol of Lemmy's irreverent, against-everyone stance — spades being considered unlucky for the English) shed the fascinating dusty haze of the early records to take on a more blinding light and a more naked thirst, that of the blazing sun over half-deserted prairies: “Shoot You in the Back”. Still, the by-now-deliberate routine of the band's effects (hammering sound, slurred, raspy delivery of the lyrics) isn't quite as fully backed up by the excellent quality of the songs as it was on the previous two albums. Lemmy's streak settles, and will settle for good, into a kind of limbo that will lead the band (from here on unable to say anything genuinely new) toward dissolution and toward becoming “a one-man band” that, for all its side projects, for all the flood of albums that followed, for all its sincerity and honesty, will have nothing new left to offer that's worth admiring. There's time, though, for one last absolute masterpiece: “(We Are) The Road Crew”, Lemmy's spiritual testament (“Another town, another place, another girl, another face.”) and his most important track after the untouchable “Overkill”.

I have no desire to talk about Motorhead's other studio albums, and I'd advise against buying them: why should we settle for the worst when there's better available? Mind you, it's a relative worst: even Motorhead's lousiest album is gold compared to the less-bad efforts of plenty of other bands, but words (for better or worse) take on weight depending on whose mouth they come from: if Motorhead make a certain kind of album, it's a flop; if some other band made that very same record, it would be a masterpiece.

Let's go back, to wrap up, to the question of mixing, and of the power of the Motorhead sound, too often held in check by technical and physiological problems. Let's even assume you've bought all four albums discussed so far. Well, you still wouldn't have heard Motorhead at all.

The real Motorhead, in fact, are the live Motorhead. And not just because they rearrange the songs in a frighteningly violent, hammering way, nor simply because Lemmy, besides being an animal in general, is an unmatched animal on stage, but above all because, on that night at London's Hammersmith Odeon, the mixing desks were real mixing desks, and they gave us the pressing of No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (1981), very probably the most violent album in the entire history of rock. Even today, listening to it, it practically bursts your eardrums, which get slapped, slashed and blown apart relentlessly, in a merciless, feral violence. Similar effects (as if your eardrum were being smashed with bare hands, or with the reverb of tin-can lids) crop up on other (studio) albums of the era: Motley Crue's “Too Fast for Love” and Scorpions' “Blackout”, both from 1982. This tells us two things: 1) that in rock, ever since the days of the Stooges, there's been “pounding” going on; it's just that until recently we didn't have the means to actually hear that pounding; 2) that after a record has been remixed, it's hard to tell where the original sound ends and where it's been improperly amplified. In any case, Motorhead's live set (remastered) in the collection of its 11 masterpieces (“Overkill” and “We Are the Road Crew” run back to back: listen to Lemmy's inhuman scream, with the music stopped dead, between the two tracks: you'll understand what kind of character he was) enshrines the existence of a band that ranks among the most vitally (Lemmy is anti-suicidal in the sense that he believes himself stronger than death, which he constantly mocks) savage ever. And the real Motorhead are to be found in this live album; nowhere else. Whoever listens to anything else can't claim to have heard the real Motorhead.

True to their typically uncompromising heavy-rock conformism, Motorhead released Iron Fist (1982), on which “Iron Fist” and the confessional “Loser” stand out. But there's also “Sex and Outrage”, which shows its age by shamelessly cribbing a bit from “Ace of Spades” and a bit from “Stone Dead Forever”. Better, then, the syncopation of “America” or the distortions of “Speedfreak”, even if they reveal how Lemmy is now extreme less through sheer power than through a kind of impotence, having genuinely reached the point of going “over the top” and being left with a raspy voice and a dried-up heart, still building cathedrals in the desert that nonetheless remain sincere. There's an element of déjà vu, of cliché, of the superfluous here, which nonetheless, in this kind of music, becomes a value in itself; because these are sounds and lives that are self-referential by their very nature, closed in on themselves, doing the same things over and over, simply because that's their nature and their creed.

On Another Perfect Day (1983) the most notable development is the departure of Eddie Clarke, which could also be taken as a symbol of the end of the band's classic period. The album also shows a greater pursuit of melody and chorus, at the expense of sheer sonic impact. What we get, essentially, are rock tracks played at a cracking pace, thanks above all to Lemmy's usual ragged voice, but ones that sit squarely within a chorus-centred song format. Amid a few too many missteps, “Dancing on Your Grave”, “Rock It” and “(Don't Need) Religion” may not be masterpieces, but they do have a certain effectiveness — more lighthearted in the first two, more earnest in the last.

On Orgasmatron (1986), Lemmy is the only member left from the original lineup. The band's sound is now less raw than in the past, as if it's been given a polish and a shine; its appeal inevitably suffers for it. Still, the jagged, epic “Claw”, the thunderous “Mean Machine” above all, and “Doctor Rock” with its bitter irony manage to keep things at a respectable standard.

On Rock And Roll (1987), with Taylor back behind the drums, Motorhead reassert, right from the title, their irreducible, tireless nature. Credit must go to them for being truly among the few bands entitled, in every sense, to use the word “rock”. Because that's exactly what they do, and in that they never disappoint. Who else can say as much? “Stone Deaf in the USA”, “Wolf”, “Dogs” are the usual bacchanals, saying nothing new, but they ooze dedication to the cause and are, as always, played (by Lemmy) with his heart on his sleeve. In cases like this, the criticism shouldn't be aimed at the band for being repetitive and small-minded, but at those listeners who'd rather Motorhead weren't Motorhead at all.

1916 (1991) develops an enviable wealth of ideas. Returning to the inventiveness of their golden years, the band is perhaps less Motorhead but more artistic. If this album is undoubtedly more engaging for the listener than their recent output, it must be said that, in another sense, one can detect a certain artificiality, as if someone were trying to reduce the irreducible or rationalize the irrational. Within the band's history, it nonetheless brings a breath of fresh air and reinvigorates where it was needed, also reaffirming Lemmy's full determination to keep treading the stage for a long time to come. "Shut You Down" is the most powerful track; "Love Me Forever" is a dazed, dragging ballad, and "On To Sing The Blues" confesses what lies behind the beard of rock 'n' roll, of Lemmy's voice and style. "Going To Brazil" and "Angel" are then two typical rock 'n' roll numbers, both proud and lost at once. "Make My Day" complicates the formula rhythmically, and "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." is a tribute to the other source of inspiration for Lemmy, the opposite of the blues.

March Or Die (1992) sounds a bit like one album too many, and also fairly lifeless. There are Metallica-style guitar blasts on "Bad Religion", dissonant ones on "Jack The Ripper", but there's also a slide into an acoustic ballad that feels like mere filler. "Hellraiser" is a behemoth with all its virtues and flaws. And then there are yet more rip-offs of rock 'n' roll classics ("You Better Run").

Bastards (1993) sharpens the blades again and brings back the volume, heavy with blasphemy, extremism and chaos. The first four tracks are a great tour de force in this sense; then unfortunately the album loses its way amid ballads and various bits of filler.

Sacrifice (1995), the album marking the band's twentieth anniversary, slows down, coarsens and darkens the sound but without much substance to show for it — even if it's still a cut above the work of many contemporaries, and still listenable if not always particularly enjoyable.

Overnight Sensation (1996) goes back to betting on speed, but this time it really misses the mark on every front.

Snake Bite Love (1998) is much better: a nearly flawless, uncompromising battering ram of a record, capable of serving up one flagellating ritual after another. This is a commanding collection of excesses and curses, dwelling particularly on the more perverse and diabolical side of things, filtered through a sulphurous, almost death metal dust. At times the rock element is even pushed behind rather than in front of such a morbid atmosphere. Without doubt the best Motorhead record of the Nineties, the 2000s, and beyond. "Better Off Dead", "Desperate For You" and "Dogs Of War" even manage to nail an effective chorus.

The far more subdued We Are Motorhead (2000) is instead yet another indulgence too many: the sobs of "Slow Dance", the breathless rock of "We Are Motorhead" that you feel you've heard a thousand times before, and the catchiness of "Out Of Lunch" all seem to hide, despite an undeniable dignity, behind the cover of the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen".

Hammered (2002) relies on sharpness and drilling intensity rather than heaviness and brute force. It's another jumble of untamed instincts fired off at full speed with varying degrees of precision. But the thing about a classic act like Motorhead is that whatever they do, they always offer that little something extra that, even if it doesn't inspire admiration, at least stirs some interest or engagement. Even without memorable tracks on offer, it's as if the listener is simply asked to catch and share the atmosphere, the spirit — as if it were a companion piece or a show of support for whoever has signed up to a certain, timeless and inexhaustible way of life. That's why a band like Motorhead can be called, and not called, commercial or derivative.

Inferno (2004) is yet another massive slab of rotting, indigestible, reeking, overflowing slaughterhouse meat. If one Motorhead song is enough for a listener to have heard them all, Lemmy needed all these songs and more to live out the last thirty years, and will need just as many for however much longer he lives.

In 2006 Kiss Of Death came out, yet another exercise in the Motorhead style that adds nothing to what Lemmy has been offering for thirty years, but takes nothing away either.

The same goes for the following Motörizer (2008) and, in particular, for The Wörld Is Yours from 2011, their twentieth album, moving between distorted, chunky boogie ("Born To Loose"), punk epics ("I Know How To Die", "I Know What You Need"), sticky choruses that emerge from the din ("Get Back In Line", which in any case has the swagger of a true classic), ever-present "metal" grit ("Outlaw") and the propulsive "Devils In My Hand", with guitarist Philip Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee perfectly backing up the hoarse but still-undiminished voice of the ever-reliable Mr. Kilmister. In the end, despite being loaded with adrenaline and noisy pathos, this is still, as ever, good old rock 'n' roll in disguise. They say as much openly, loud and clear, without much ceremony: "Rock'n'Roll Music", but also the increasingly unhinged "Bye Bye Bitch Bye Bye" doesn't hide behind a finger.

At the end of 2011, the label UDR released "The Wörld Is Ours – Vol. 1: Everywhere Further Than Everyplace Else" on CD and DVD, a live album featuring recordings from concerts in Santiago, New York and Manchester; the following year came "Volume 2", subtitled "Anyplace Crazy as Anywhere Else"; the highlight of the tracklist is the live set at Wacken 2011: on the German festival's giant stage, Lemmy and co. run through 17 songs spanning their long career: plenty of the band's classics (the unmissable "Iron Fist", "Ace Of Spades", "Overkill"...), but there's also room for forays into their more recent discography.

Few surprises, but plenty of certainties, starting with Lemmy, standing at that microphone with his voice huskier than ever (though it seems he's almost quit smoking). His distorted bass plays a leading role, but guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee are certainly no mere sidemen.

The album is rounded out by two excerpts from the live show at Sonisphere UK 2011 (dedicated to the band's former guitarist Wurzel, who died the day before) and from Rock In Rio 2011, containing six and five tracks respectively, only one of which ("I Know How To Die") was absent from the Wacken set.

On October 21, 2013, Aftershock came out, recorded earlier that year, that is before Lemmy's health problems, which would keep him off the stage for a while. Fourteen new chapters in the Motorhead saga: essential and effective, but played and produced superbly. Nothing is missing: electrifying solos ("Coup De Grace", "Do You Believe"), rough-edged blues ("Lost Woman Blues", "Dust And Glass"), full-throttle shards of songs ("End of Time", "Going To Mexico", "Queen Of The Damned"): it all unfolds without a single dip in quality, marking a thoroughly welcome "return".

Time doesn't seem to have passed for Lemmy and co. in the following Bad Magic (2015) either. Forty years of activity and a whopping twenty-two albums: perhaps too many, especially when whatever you had to say was said long ago… Be that as it may, charging out of the gate with the frenzied, driving uptempo of "Victory Or Die" is always a pleasure, backed by a guitarist who knows his craft (Phil Campbell) and a drummer who never misses a beat, solid and precise (Mikkey Dee). This is the energy of rock stripped bare, the kind that asks no permission, rude and sincere, made of relentless riffing ("Evil Eye", "Fire Storm Hotel"), blistering solos ("Thunder & Lightning", "Shoot Out All Of Your Lights"), or ones tossed in just to give guest Brian May something to do ("The Devil").

After the initial punch, though, you end up settling, somewhat bored, into the unbroken flow of notes and well-worn solutions (there's even one ballad too many: "Till The End"), at most sparing a bit of extra attention for "Teach Them How To Bleed", which collapses into a distorted blues mode, or for the pulsing weave of "Tell Me Who To Kill". Closing things out is a cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" by the Rolling Stones, well done and full of grit but not exactly memorable. Much like the whole album, really (but if you're a disciple of the Mötörhead gospel, dig in!).

Contributions by Francesco Nunziata ("The Wörld Is Ours", "Bad Magic") and Lorenzo Pagani ("The Wörld Is Ours – Vol. 2", "Aftershock")

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