MOTÖRHEAD — Orgasmatron (review)

MOTÖRHEAD — Orgasmatron album cover Album · 1986 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Warthur
The idea of Motörhead taking on the services of Bill Laswell of Material fame as a producer was always a bit of an odd one, and Lemmy seems to have regretted it, griping in his autobiography that he doesn't like the mix on the album. I can certainly see where he's coming from; the sound of the album is interesting, but ultimately saps the material of some of the power and punch that you really look for in a Motörhead album.

What saves Orgasmatron is the quality of the songs involved, which rise above the muddled mix to represent the strongest set of new material the band had released since Ace of Spades. At its best moments, the production lends the songs a slightly futuristic vibe, and the fact that no Motörhead album before or after quite sounded like it does at least make it a novelty in a back catalogue replete with a certain degree of self-plagiarism.

The story of adversity surrounding Orgasmatron doesn't stop there - aside from the production issues, the band literally had to start their own record label in order to get this out. This came about after Motörhead had won their court case against Bronze Records, who they'd accused of botching the promotion of their material. Having lost the case, Bronze collapsed due to the financial load, and perhaps record labels were scared of that happening to them if they got into a future dispute with the band - or maybe people weren't sure that Motörhead were still a viable act, due to Iron Fist and Another Perfect Day not quite winning the acclaim of Ace of Spades and the band having been unable to put out another studio album due to their legal dispute with Bronze.

That would be foolish of them, of course - Orgasmatron proves that Motörhead in 1986 could still sound credible and potent next to any of the thrash upstarts of the era. And perhaps being forced to hold back their material for a few years allowed Motörhead to bring a really well-honed set to the table, picking the cream of the crop from the material they'd been working on and resulting in an all-killer no-filler release. Either way, Orgasmatron may not be a classic based on its own merits, but it's still a damn good album which combines great music with a really important position in the band's history.
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UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Pretty much sums up what I´ve written about the album (review not posted yet).

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