UMUR
"Snake Bite Love" is the 15th full-length studio album by UK heavy rock/metal act Motörhead. The album was released through SPV GmbH in March 1998. It´s the successor to "Overnight Sensation" from 1996. The band are often cited for calling "Snake Bite Love" a rushed recording, mostly because they didn´t have much material written for the album only few weeks before they had to enter the studio and therefore didn´t have time to develop the compositions as much as they might have liked.
To my ears that´s not particularly audible, as the material on the 11 track, 44:52 minutes long album are generally of high quality, and unmistakably the sound of Motörhead. It´s true that there are only a few standout tracks on the album (the opener "Love for Sale" is one of them), but that´s no different from most other releases by the band. The quality is always high but truly standout tracks are almost always in the minority. On this album I could mention "Dogs of War", "Take the Blame", and "Don´t Lie to Me" as some of the highlights (along with the above mentioned opening track).
The musical performances are as always on a high level. Lemmy sounds as gruff and raw as ever (although always with a melodic sensibility to his singing), his bass rumbles, Phil Campbell churns out one heavy blues based rock´n´roll riff and solo after another, and drummer Mikkey Dee is a skillfully playing powerhouse. His drumming always puts a smile on my face and at times makes my jaw drop. Damn he is good...
"Snake Bite Love" features a fat, warm, and powerful sounding production, which suits the material perfectly, so upon conclusion it´s another quality release by Motörhead. It´s not an album featuring any different sounding tracks or experiments, and it´s certainly not the band´s most memorable release either, but it´s enjoyable while it plays, and I remember the highlights off the album, so a 3.5 star (70%) rating isn´t all wrong.