Features Disc of the day
Motörhead
Overkill
(Bronze, 1979)
Lemmy’s unrepentant declaration of WOOOAAAARRRGGHHH!
“Only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud!” gargled Lemmy on the album’s opening title track, and, as if to prove a point, he delivered a further nine salvos of unbridled amphetamine/Special Brew-fuelled savagery. While producer Jimmy Miller had previously developed the percussive approach that defined Spencer Davis Group’s I’m A Man and The Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil, here he simply spurred Phil ‘Animal’ Taylor on to faster things, the latter’s pernicious double kick drum unleashing Overkill’s opening blitzkrieg. And yet, while the band’s new line-up (which included rapacious guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke) reinvented the very notion of the power trio in a post-punk environment, the core of this second album lies deeply rooted in the rama-lama spirit of primal rock’n’roll – a point evident on No Class (Lem’s take on ZZ Top’s Tush), Stay Clean, Tear Ya Down and Damage Case. Elsewhere, the brooding Metropolis and Capricorn harked back to Lemmy’s space rock adventures in Hawkwind – the band who’d unceremoniously sacked him four years earlier. As skull-shattering as the Joe Pentagno artwork that accompanied it, Overkill appealed to punks and long-hairs alike, introducing the concept of bullet-belts as a fashion accoutrements, and creating the proto-thrash template later exploited by Metallica. Peaking at Number 24 in the UK charts, it also ushered Motörhead’s golden period, yielding three classic albums - Bomber (Number 4), Ace Of Spades (Number 12) and 1981’s live chart-topper, No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith.
Phil Alexander
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 8:31 AM GMT 10/03/2008
Further Listening
MC5 – Kick Out The Jams (Elektra, 1969)
Motörhead – Bomber (Bronze, 1979)
The Damned – Machine Gun Etiquette (Chiswick, 1979)
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