One thing I’ve always loved about the British heavy metal band
\nMotorhead is that they’re always fun to listen to. The sheer energy
\nof the performances and rather intelligent songwriting (at times),
\ncompiled with the hoarse singing of bassist Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister,
\nmake Motorhead, quite simply, a fun band to slam my head into the
\nplaster to.<\/p>\n
After checking out some of the band’s more recent work here on
\n“The Daily Vault,” I thought it was time to head back into their
\nearly days – meaning a trip into the Pierce Memorial Archives for
\ntheir 1978 release
\nOverkill<\/i>. Twenty years after its release, it still is an
\nincredible album that hasn’t seemed to age a day (except in the
\nvocal department… we’ll talk about that soon enough).<\/p>\n
If all you know of Motorhead is the material off any of the
\nnumber of compilation albums out on the market, then you should
\nfeel very comfortable with
\nOverkill<\/i>. From the constant double-bass work of Phil
\n“Philthy Animal” Taylor to the tasty leads whipped out of a
\nStratocaster by “Fast” Eddie Clarke, the title track seems to say
\neverything you’re going to need to know about Motorhead in five
\nminutes. Kilmister’s vocals are surprisingly smooth, although there
\nare touches of the infamous hoarseness to them. (I’ve always
\nthought that Kilmister could hold a tune very well; his voice was
\nactually quite good in the early days of Motorhead.)<\/p>\n
Fine, you’re saying, one track is great… but one track doesn’t
\nmake for a great album. You’re right, and Motorhead backs it up
\nwith song after song of vein-popping material. The fancy bass solo
\non “Stay Clean,” the sheer power of “No Class,” the “thinking
\nperson’s metal” of “Metropolis” and “Capricorn,” Motorhead
\nconstantly offer material that should satisfy even the pickiest
\nmetal fan. Even the final track from
\nOverkill<\/i>, “Limb From Limb,” is a tour de force that dares
\nyou to try and stop it.<\/p>\n
The re-issue of
\nOverkill<\/i> contains three bonus songs: an original version of
\n“Tear Ya Down” without vocals (different, but I still miss Lemmy),
\na studio version of “Too Late, Too Late” (a live version appeared
\non the 1984 best-of
\nNo Remorse<\/i>) and their cover of “Louie Louie” (formerly on
\nNo Remorse<\/i>, it didn’t make the cut on the CD due to space
\nrestrictions).<\/p>\n
What is striking about
\nOverkill<\/i> is that, with the exception of Kilmister’s voice,
\nthis album sounds like something that the band could have put out
\nlast month. Its freshness is remarkable, especially for a heavy
\nmetal album. (While we’re on that, this album isn’t always really
\nheavy metal; instead, I’d like to call it “hard rock” with an
\noccasional metal bend to the music.)<\/p>\n
Whatever you choose to call it, there is one word that best fits<\/p>\n
Overkill<\/i>: classic.<\/p>\n
1998 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
\nRoadRacer Revisited Records, and is used for references purposes
\nonly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5666],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-35986","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-motorhead","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35986"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35986"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}