Motorhead – Ace Of Spades
Artist: Motorhead | Album: Ace Of Spades | Style: Metal | Year: 2003 | Quality: DVD-Audio (MLP 5.1 96kHz/24Bit, Dolby AC3 5.1) | Bitrate: lossless | Tracks: 12 | Size: ~2.26 Gb | Recovery: 3% | Covers: in archive | Release: Silverline Records (288133-9), 2003 | Note: Not Watermarked

With the 1980 release of Ace of Spades, Motörhead had their anthem of anthems — that is, the title track — the one trademark song that would summarize everything that made this early incarnation of the band so legendary, a song that would be blasted by legions of metalheads for generations on end. It’s a legendary song, for sure, all two minutes and 49 bracing seconds of it. And the album of the same name is legendary as well, among Motörhead’s all-time best, often considered their single best, in fact, along with Overkill. Ace of Spades was Motörhead’s third great album in a row, following the 1979 releases of Overkill and Bomber, respectively. Those two albums have a lot in common with Ace of Spaces. The classic lineup — Lemmy (bass and vocals), “Fast” Eddie Clarke (guitar), and “Philthy Animal” Taylor (drums) — is still in place and sounding as alive and crazed as ever. The album is still rock-solid, boasting several superlative standouts. Actually, besides the especially high number of standouts on Ace of Spades — at least relative to Bomber, which wasn’t quite as strong overall as Overkill had been — the only key difference between this 1980 album and its two 1979 predecessors is the producer, in this case Vic Maile. The result of his work isn’t all that different from that of Jimmy Miller, the longtime Rolling Stones producer who had worked on Overkill and Bomber, but it’s enough to give Ace of Spades a feeling distinct from its two very similar-sounding predecessors. This singular sound (still loud and in your face, rest assured), along with the exceptionally strong songwriting and the legendary stature of the title track, makes Ace of Spades the ideal Motörhead album if one were to choose one and only one studio album. It’s highly debatable whether Ace of Spades is tops over the breakthrough Overkill, as the latter is more landmark because of its earlier release, and is somewhat rougher around the edges, too. Either way, Ace of Spades rightly deserves its legacy as a classic. There’s no debating that. (more…)

Motörhead – Overkill
Artist: Motörhead | Album: Overkill | Style: Heavy Metal, Speed Metal | Year: 2003 [1979 original] | Quality: DVD-Audio (MLP 5.1 96kHz/24Bit, MLP 2.0 96kHz/24Bit) | Tracks: 10 + 5 bonus | Size: 3.4 Gb | Recovery: 5% | Covers: in archive | Release: Silverline Records (288189-9), 2003 | Note: Not Watermarked

Motörhead’s landmark second album, Overkill, marked a major leap forward for the band, and it remains one of their all-time best, without question. In fact, some fans consider it their single best, topping even Ace of Spaces. It’s a ferocious album, for sure, perfectly showcasing Motörhead’s trademark style of no holds barred proto-thrash — a kind of punk-inflected heavy metal style that is sloppy and raw yet forceful and in your face. Motörhead, the band’s self-titled debut from 1977, had been rush-recorded, and its stripped-down, super-raw sound wasn’t all that impressive, at least not relative to what would follow. Overkill is what followed, recorded in December 1978 and January 1979, and released not long thereafter. The band’s sound is fully formed here, and it totally explodes right off the bat on the five-minute title track. A number of Motörhead standards follow, among them “Stay Clean” and “No Class.” Produced by Jimmy Miller, who had helmed a number of classic Rolling Stones albums (Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup), Overkill sounds wonderful, especially on the numerous remastered editions of this album. The band’s classic lineup — Lemmy (bass and vocals), “Fast” Eddie Clarke (guitar), and “Philthy Animal” Taylor (drums) — is well in place here, and they seem eager to rip loose wildly on every single song. This, in addition to the solid track listing and Miller’s production, makes Overkill a perfect Motörhead album. Several great ones would follow, of course, but Overkill was the first of the great ones, and quite possibly the greatest of all. (more…)