MOTÖRHEAD — Motörhead (review)

MOTÖRHEAD — Motörhead album cover Album · 1977 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Unitron
Throughout the metal genre's constant evolution, there are three bands that epitomize heavy metal to my ears. Not thrash, not death, not power, but unadulterated pure heavy metal. Those three bands are Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and last but certainly not least, Motörhead. While Sabbath invented doom metal, and Priest combined Sabbath's developments of doom with raw speed and aggression, Motörhead brought punk into the newly formed sound of metal which would strongly influence the early thrash metal acts.

After getting fired from heavy space rock pioneers Hawkwind in 1975 for "doing the wrong drugs" in Lemmy's words, Lemmy was on his own and formed his own band. Named after the last song Lemmy wrote for Hawkwind, Motörhead stormed onto the scene with their self-titled debut in 1977 (Although the release On Parole was recorded two years earlier, it wasn't released until 1979.). With the help of "Fast" Eddie Clark and Philthy "Animal" Taylor, Lemmy had already gotten together a now-classic metal lineup.

Motörhead, despite being a debut, is not much different from classics like Overkill and Ace of Spades. The only main difference is that you can still hear the remnants of the punk-y space metal of Lemmy's time in Hawkwind. That is most evident in the Hawkwind songs that were re-recorded for this debut. Along with the classic title track, "Lost Johnny" and "The Watcher" are both previous Hawkwind tracks written by Lemmy. The former originally appeared on 1974's Hall of the Mountain Grill, while the latter was found on 1972's Doremi Fasol Latido. Each of these songs all more-or-less retain the spacey punk metal of the original recordings, albeit with a bit more bite. This is Motörhead we're talking about after all.

Out of the new songs "Iron Horse/Born to Lose" is a classic, and "Keep Us on the Road" has a nice mix of the space rock of Hawkwind and the already developed sound of Motörhead. The cover of the blues classic "Train Kept a Rollin'" kicks the ass of Aerosmith's cover with Motörhead delivering what I like to call Punk Blues. The remaining songs, "Vibrator" and "White Line Fever" are great too, but aren't quite as memorable as the rest of the tracks.

Just like the debuts of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, whom I mentioned before, Motörhead's debut album is a classic as well. It's not only a classic for paving the way for the band's sound, but it's simply a damn great album that appeals to both metalheads and punks. Do you want speed, but aren't quite in the mood for Slayer? You can't do much better than Motörhead. Hope you found this review helpful, feel free to comment!
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siLLy puPPy wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I love those Hawkwind albums. OK, early Motorhead just got a nudge into the priority pile :)
UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Great album this one. I have a review written, which I haven´t posted yet.
Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Thanks, if you enjoy the Hawkwind albums with Lemmy this is pretty close in sound to the heavier tracks of those albums.
siLLy puPPy wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Great review. I sadly still haven't listened to this Motorhead debut. Just can't seem to get to it!

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