I’m starting to get worried about Lemmy Kilmister and
\nMotorhead.<\/p>\n
After a streak of albums which seemed to suggest that Kilmister
\nand crew could do absolutely no wrong, some chinks in the armor
\nstarted to appear with
\nSnake Bite Love<\/i>. Their last studio effort, 2000’s
\nWe Are Motorhead<\/i>, continued that trend, though it seemed to
\nbe a little more solid of an effort throughout.<\/p>\n
Now Motorhead offers us
\nHammered<\/i>, a disc which almost sounds sluggish at times, and
\ndoesn’t really show the group using its three key pieces –
\nbassist\/vocalist Kilmister, guitarist Phil Campbell and drummer
\nMikkey Dee – to their full potential.<\/p>\n
In some ways, I’ll admit I’m a hypocrite here. As much as I
\nloved the more conventional approach that Motorhead worked into
\ntheir sound on 1996’s
\nOvernight Sensation<\/i>, I didn’t think it as worked as well
\nsince, and it almost sounds like Motorhead isn’t totally
\ncomfortable in this setting anymore. “Walk A Crooked Mile,” the
\ndisc’s opening track, is all the proof one needs of this – though
\nMotorhead offers up some more painful exhibits on “Down The Line,”
\n“Mine All Mine” and “Voices From The War”. Even “Brave New World,”
\nKilmister’s scathing look at religion and society in the early 21st
\nCentury, doesn’t measure up as well as one would hope. (The
\ninclusion of Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed on “Mine All
\nMine” dares to suggest that Motorhead has regressed a bit back to
\nthe days of
\nMarch Or Die<\/i>, easily their weakest album overall.)<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that
\nHammered<\/i> is completely without merit. “Shut Your Mouth,” the
\nlead single from the disc, is admittedly a track that has to grow
\non you, but reminds me a lot of “Sacrifice” in some ways (albeit
\nslowed down significantly, and without the time changes that only
\nMotorhead could handle), but proves to be an enjoyable track. Once
\nMotorhead gets down to business, the skies look much brighter, and
\nsongs like “Red Raw,” “No Remorse” and “Kill The World” all show
\nthat even after 27 years, Kilmister can still kick anyone’s ass.
\nThe spoken-word piece “Serial Killer” would have been the ultimate
\nway for this disc to end.<\/p>\n
This is where the final two mistakes are made. First is the
\ninclusion of “The Game,” a song Kilmister wrote for pro wrestler
\nTriple H – Jesus Christ, Motorhead writing for the WWF has got to
\nbe one of the signs of the impending Apocalypse. Sorry, guys – I
\nlove ya dearly, but this song really sounds like a cast-off. The
\nother mistake is a tepid live version of “Overnight Sensation” –
\nand since I’m working from MP3 files (I’m guessing my publicist
\nfriends lost my address), I can’t say for sure where this was
\nrecorded, but it sounds like it was something done for television.
\n“Overnight Sensation” is a great song; this just isn’t as solid a
\nperformance as I would have liked. (Besides, it wasn’t that long
\nago that Motorheadbangers were given
\nEverything Louder Than Everyone Else<\/i>.)<\/p>\n
I absolutely hate writing anything negative about a band like
\nMotorhead, especially when they’re a group I’ve followed for over
\n15 years. (I know – to some of the older fans, I’m still a rookie.)
\nBut
\nHammered<\/i> is not the strongest release that Motorhead has
\ngraced its fanbase with, and dares to suggest that the boys are
\ngetting a little tired. Here’s hoping they come back next time with
\nan album that knocks my nose into my brain to prove me wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5666],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-37375","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-motorhead","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37375","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=37375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37375"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37375"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}