Album Pick of the Year
03. Motorhead Bomber 1979 (Bronze)
Hard Rock
Burning fuel for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Overview
Bomber would be the second of three albums released by these kick-ass rockers throughout 1979. The first of course was
Overkill (see review) and the third was the official release of
On Parole their actual debut album recorded by the band as far back as 1976.
On Parole would now get a proper release by the end of the year, due to the storming success of Motorhead in the UK charts. So after the sensation that was known as
Overkill, the heavy music industry now had a new major player in the UK and because this was the late 1970s, a quickly released follow-up by the record company was soon demanded and this came in the way of the
Bomber album.
Overkill Producer Jimmy Miller who was already a famed producer having previously dished out several of the Rolling Stones’ best loved albums over the years, was still around and would give us another gritty production to follow-up the one already laid down on the
Overkill album earlier on in the year. It would also be this gun-rattling raw production approach of Jimmy Miller that would be the vital ingredient for Motorhead’s impact across both the
Overkill and
Bomber albums. As with the
Overkill album cover,
Bomber would also give us another no-thrills but yet vivid album cover that was certainly contemporary for heavy metal and hard rock around this time and despite their similarities they were designed by two different artists in Joe Petagno and Adrian Chesterman. Songwise the band were as tight as they would ever get and all the compositions here are written yet again by all three band members, as they nearly all had been on the previous
Overkill album. Image wise the band looked every inch of how they sounded but in essence they weren’t going to shock British audiences as say the Sex Pistols had done a few years earlier, but whereas the Sex Pistols were largely a band designed to shock, Motorhead were just three bad-ass geezers who didn’t give a fu
ck about shocking and much like say the Stranglers they just went out to play regardless of what people thought. As a band they certainly embraced the ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ logo to the limit and both their attitude and honesty would be their calling card as far as the rock industry was concerned and
Bomber as an album and statement just says it all.
Lemmy- Bass/Vocals
Fast ‘Eddie’ Clarke- Guitar
Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor
Production- Jimmy Miller
Album
Dead Men Tell No Tales- Lemmy starts with the opening lyric “This is it” and the song generates all the energy that the band were able to muster and the track moves along at a mid-tempo and the perfect opener in every way.
Lawman- Lemmy again starts with an opening lyric and this time it’s with the sombre word “Cancer” and the song is a somewhat sombre sounding metal based track and certainly one of the heaviest on the album and leads into…
Sweet Revenge- This time the opening lyric is “Hello victims” and the song is literally a continuation in style from the previous “Lawman”. However the song drags more than “Lawman” but is still a good song with a great vibe.
Sharpshooter- The whole pace of the album picks up again for its fourth track and the song is great fuel for the fire.
Poison- A fast and melodic track and one of the stronger songs on the album and a song which would add real fire to the NWOBHM.
Stone Dead Forever- The best known track from the album and also one of the fastest and a song that easily could’ve fit on the previous
Overkill album and the song is really highlighted by its killer guitar licks!
All the Aces- ‘Ace’ always seemed to be a word that the band liked to use in their lyrics and this time it appears in the song title and this is one of the faster tracks on the album and also one of the most infectious.
Step Down- A heavy bluesy hard rock step down here in terms of speed and it’s a song that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the album and it’s a real oddity, but it’s still a good song anyway.
Talking Head- We’re now back on track again and the type of the song now that the band were dishing out in their sleep.
Bomber- The title track finishes the album with a blitzkrieg attack leaving the listener looking for more.
Verdict
Bomber would be another brutal bombardment unleashed by the band, which would actually see some deviation from the formula already perfected on the
Overkill album, as the band would now dish out another ten overdriven tracks to fuel the hungry ears of awaiting fans. So with the release of
Bomber they largely got what they wanted, but
Bomber though would differ slightly from
Overkill in the tempo of some of its songs.
Bomber contained more of a mid-tempo metallic/punk vibe to it, despite the fact that it has some very fast songs. This was compared to the overall faster punk/speed metal approach of the previous
Overkill, despite countering
Bomber with its own slower songs and
Bomber was probably the heavier of the two albums. Also never before had there quite been such a fusion of both metal and punk within a band, that also sounded so authentic as well! Motorhead to their credit were able to master this fusion over two albums in 1979 without missing a heartbeat and in turn gaining them a fanbase that still remains as strong today. The general consensus is that
Bomber as an album probably doesn’t flow quite as seamlessly as
Overkill does, but this is an opinion though that I actually disagree with, due to the fact that
Bomber doesn’t have songs like “Capricorn” or “Metropolis” to break its quality and tempo factor. Also song for song
Bomber probably has stronger tracks, but where
Overkill does gain its greater plaudits as far as critics are concerned is surely in its impact at the time, whereas
Bomber is probably more of an album suited to genuine metal fans. The stand-out tracks on
Bomber are the jugular hitting album starter “Dead Men Tell No Tales” the mid-tempo and pulverizing “Lawman” and the heavy but even slower “Sweet Revenge”. Then there is the energetic melody of “Poison” which contrasts with the later breakneck energy of “All the Aces” then there is the sloppy gusto of “Stone Dead Forever” and finally the title track “Bomber” and these last two songs are without doubt two of the best songs in the entire Motorhead discography! Whenever I think of Motorhead at this time, I usually think of them as a hard rock band that were influential on numerous acts to follow, but the fact of the matter is that with songs like “Lawman” and “Sweet Revenge” etc the band had very heavy tracks that were distinctly metal in every aspect. Motorhead would go onto provide one of the strongest reference points for the future thrash movement in the USA, largely because they had the speed and crudeness that would later fuel that thrash movement. Thrash metal would be largely about marrying both metal and hardcore, and its seed was certainly laid with what would be called the proto-thrash of Motorhead back in 1979!