Motorhead

Aftershock

UDR, 2013

Motorhead makes two types of records. Good ones, and better ones. And Motorhead on their worst day is still better than most bands on their best day got it?

So with Aftershock, their 21^st album they’ve rolled out a phenomenal release that has everything you want from any album. Everyone whose ever used a distortion pedal with a sense of purpose, should pay attention, because this is how it’s done. There’s fourteen songs here clocking in at  around forty minutes and you will be transformed when the CD finishes playing the last fading notes of the last song.

There are songs about committing crimes, women and the trouble they always bring, drinking, fighting and Lemmy never once shares his feelings about anything poncey. Translation, if a chick, or whoever, broke your heart, you are entitled to drink too much, get in a fight and break something you once liked. Not cry a pitiful river about what are you gonna do now.

When you’re in the middle of this record, you’d be hard pressed to want to be elsewhere. The songs are short and punchy, full of tough, distorted accounts of brutish behavior and they come quickly, one after another, without a dud in the bunch.

“Keep Your Powder Dry,” “Queen of the Damned,” and “Going to Mexico” are all stand out tracks as hard nosed, go for broke rockers.  “Dust and Glass” is the quiet, demure song of the bunch, if you can call it that. Slower, more laconic, it still manages to cut aggressively and be assertive, despite itis original design.

Young bands of angry upstart, would be musicians could learn everything they need to know about music and songwriting from this and the rest of Motorhead’s catalog. Like, how to use a limited vocal range to great effect. How to write memorable three minute songs, and how still sound pissed off after 40 years of being the baddest of the bad.