Artist: Motorhead 
   Title: Better Motorhead Than Dead - Live At Hammersmith
   Label: SPV Records

With more than 30 years in the business Motorhead have always epitomised Heavy Metal for many with their louder than everything else attitude and their charismatic front man Lemmy Kilmister leading the band all those years.  The band have seen many line-up changes over those 30 years but the now stalwart trio of Kilmister, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee are today’s Motorhead and will remain so for sometime.

The band celebrated their 30^th anniversary in 2005 and took their no holds barred metal to London’s Hammersmith Apollo to record the show for prosperity.  This two disc album shows why the band have remained the force of British Heavy Metal all these years, with no less than 23 ear splitting metal anthems, from the old favourites to the newer tracks taken from their ‘Inferno’ album and a few surprise packages along the way.

Things get underway with Kilmister introducing things in that gravely Jack Daniels soaked voice ... “We are Motorhead and we play rock n' roll” ... and that they do best, as it kicks off with ‘Dr Rock’ and from this point on there is no turning back as the mighty machine that is Motorhead steams through the set like an express train, with the likes of ‘Stay Clean’ and ‘Love Me Like A Reptile’ still withstanding the test of time as they stand side by side with the newer material of ‘Killers’ and ‘Metropolis’.

But it’s the old favourites that really do it for me, the likes of “Over The Top’ and who can forget ‘No Class’, but the surprises along the way come from the 'Another Perfect Day' album, an album that was once hated by the die hard fans back in '83 when the album was released but the album has become somewhat of legendary and is now appreciated by the fans for what is was and the tracks ‘I’ve Got Mine’ and 'Dancing On Your Grave’ are now part of the set and are lapped up by the enthused audience, all this and that’s just the first disc.

The second disc carries on where disc one left off with the bands tribute to those pioneers of punk ‘R.A.M.O.N.E.S’ before settling back into the British groove with ‘Sacrifice’, with Mikkey Dee punishing the drum kit with a thumping solo and the pounding continued with ‘Just ‘Cos You Got The Power’, then it's back to the classics with one of my favourite Motorhead anthems ‘(We Are) The Road Crew’.

And if classics are what you want then they are in abundance on this second disc with ‘Killed By Death’ and ’Iron Fist’ leading the way before the seminal acoustic blues of ‘Whorehouse Blues’.

But what Motorhead show wouldn’t be complete without the trio of songs that round off the disc ‘Bomber’, 'Ace Of Spades’ and the icing on the cake, my favourite Motorhead track of all time ‘Overkill’, which wraps up another great live album from the British Masters of Heavy Metal and with the band returning later this year with Alice Cooper and Joan Jett this is a great taster of what’s to come. 

“The only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud!”

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