Motörhead-Aftershock

UDR GmbH
2013

Regular visitors to our site should already be aware that I am a huge Motörhead fan. I first heard them some 25 years or so ago after picking up a cassette copy of "Ace Of Spades". Since them I've seen them play live more times then I can remember as both a opening act and as as support act. I've bought the shirts countless times over, have more of their music then I could realistically ever get around to listening to (split between CDs, cassettes, LPs and mp3s) and view Lemmy as the real "God of thunder and rock and roll"! Even better, my first ever review for this site was a write-up on Motörhead's "The Wörld Is Yours"! So yes, I'm a real fanboy when it comes to Lemmy and his band. Given all of that I do find myself in a weird place here. I admit that "Aftershock" shocked me alright, but sadly it was for all the wrong reasons. Well, maybe shocking is too strong of a word as more then anything it just felt sort of ho-hum. A few good tracks are sprinkled throughout 'Aftershock" and there is some really innovative playing from guitarist Phil "Wizzö" Campbell. However, on their 21st studio Lemmy, Phil and drummer Mikkey Dee also sound as if they didn't give a lot of thought towards the concept of diversity. It's not a secret or anything when I say that we all know that Lemmy's vocals and bass playing have always given Motörhead a one-of-a-kind sound and helped them stick out (and that, plainly-speaking here, a lot of Motörhead's material sounds remarkably similar). But even here it just seems as if the material falls into two categories. It sounded to me like the material here on album number 21 was either really good and heavy rocking or just...well, average. No real in-between numbers. I won't give a track by track rundown of everything seeing as "Aftershock" has already been covered a thousand times over online. I'm late the party with mine, but I wanted to give it a few spins to see if I changed my mind. Also, I had been waiting as I ordered a "Fan Pack" edition of this album from Classic Rock Magazine and was hoping it would get to me in a reasonable amount of time. But, the magazine's staff assured me that it was shipped out on October 16th and here it is November 21st and still no sign of it! Even for something that is coming my way from across the pound that's a L-O-N-G amount of time and I'm starting to think that it is as good as lost. I ended up buying just the plain old regular CD then as I grew tired of waiting for something that I now think will never show! Should the fancy package actually arrive though sometime in the next year or so I will be giving either it away or my other "new" copy. Anyway, as you know this is just my opinion of "Aftershock" and these days, thanks in no small part to the rise of technology and all that jazz, you can (probably) hear all of Motörhead's latest release online and then decide for yourself whether it's good, bad, ugly or (like my feeling of it) just ho-hum.