Motörhead - Inferno

*=Staff's pick	Terminal Show Killers* In The Name Of Tragedy* Suicide Life's A Bitch* Down On Me In The Black Fight In The Year Of The Wolf* Keys To The Kingdom Smiling Like A Killer Whorehouse Blues

Genre	Motörhead...	Lemmy	Vocals
Tracks	12	Phil Campbell	Guitar
Runningtime	49 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Steamhammer	Lemmy	Bass
Release	21 June 2004	Mikkey Dee	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

You just gotta love Motörhead, don't you? But as a reviewer they mean trouble. What is there really to add when Lemmy & Co. release a new record? It is always so typical Motörhead, isn't it? Always a high, reliable level; a healthy dose of noise and a lot of rock 'n' roll. Mr. Kilmister has preserved his voice well, with the necessary amount of Jack Daniels. Mikkey Dee hammers his sticks like a horny dog on speed. I could settle with this and go back to my couch and continue to terrorize my neighbors with Inferno. But then I will only satisfy those who claim that Motörhead always sounds the same. That is an all too simple truth. Motörhead sounds like Motörhead and should sound like Motörhead. But that concept fits many small nuances!

Terminal Show is a solid starter that includes guitar hero Steve Vai as a guest. Vai also appears later, fiddling about with his guitar on Down On Me. You can hear without doubt that his guitar play adds a dimension, compared to the quite dull Phil Campbell. To follow are two songs that I immediately add to my favorites: Killers and In The Name Of Tragedy. Exactly who should have the credit for what is, as usual with Motörhead, hard to distinguish. According to Lemmy, he has left most of the music writing to Phil and Mikkey, while Lemmy himself, as the usual routine has written down some lyrics in the last minute. This time he was obviously in a killing mode at the time. Murder from different perspectives is a returning theme.

Life's A Bitch is cast directly by the pattern for a classic rock 'n' roll song, with that riff that you probably have heard a thousand times before, but never seem to be tired of. The album has a couple of tracks that slow down the tempo a bit: Suicide and Keys To The Kingdom. On the other hand is In The Year Of The Wolf one of the most dynamic melodies the band in question has done in at least ten years. The chorus is remarkably advanced to be a Motörhead song.

This record doesn't really make it all the way over the finish line. The three last compositions are a bit too weak. Smiling Like A Killer is a cool title, but when Lemmy for the 51:st time hisses "smile", you get bored. Acoustic Whorehouse Blues is one of those songs that shows that even Motörhead is open to test "new" things. But small experiments like this will probably never be more than a bonus track. And that might be as well. Because Motörhead should be Motörhead.

This is their best since 1916 (the record, that is), someone said - and I will not protest against that, but I will not discredit the ones in between either.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	9	7

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - David