Motörhead – Bad Magic
It seems like nothing can stop Motörhead from releasing album after album. 40 years later, with multiple health issues of Lemmy Kilmister, the band is still going strong. It might me obvious Mr. Kilmister will die on stage, playing bass, preferably during ‘The Ace of Spades’. Their new album ‘Bad Magic’ is set to be released today.
We can expect it to be aggressive and loud as this is Motorhead: Monsters of loud music. The new album ‘Bad Magic’ consists of 13 tracks, including The Rolling Stones cover ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. There is also a surprise in a collaboration with Queen’s Brian May on ‘The Devil’ track, resulting in merge of just his beautiful solo and the rough riffs of Motorhead.
Opener for album is ‘Victory or Die’ – a typical Motorhead song, with decent guitars, and as usual Lemmy’s vocals. This can’t be said about ‘Shoot Out All of Your Lights’, having totally wild drums by Mikkey Dee. The song is loud, fast and furious. And when you hear something like “Teach Them How to Bleed” you begin to understand: They still got something to say. An absolutely intense song with the prolific guitars of Phil Campbell.
And to top it all ‘Bad Magic’ has the punk-themed ‘Electricity’, which in my opinion, contains the best guitar on the album. Also worth mentioning is the track called ‘Till the End’. I guess with such title Lemmy wants to prove he will die with his guitar in hands, indeed. The song is a philosophical ballad about the life of a human being, with all its ups and downs. It is quite a surprise to hear Lemmy’s voice in a melodic sequence.
A same surprise awaits us on ‘Choking On Your Screams’. It’s like Lemmy decided “Enough of me screaming, let’s do something less intense”. And so they did, and did it quite well. Overall ‘Bad Magic’ is an album that might leave dual feelings. Some may say “Oh, the same old songs, the band is not progressing, and they are not getting younger for sure”. Others may say “Oh well, let’s see, the ballads are nice, the drums still kick ass, and the guitars are intense. They still got it”. What we can say after listening to this album is that it might arguably be the best work of Motörhead over the last 10 years. Keep it up gentlemen, they still got it. (8/10) (UDR)
